Tiber's Compendium - Book II
by Lil Nezumi
Summary: Away at summer school in the US, Harry is not that unaware of what's happening in the wizarding UK. He still has to return for his fifth year to a whole new set of problems, including a Ministry plant inside his precious Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. See chapter 1 for more information.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Tiber's Compendium – Book II

 **Character centric:** Harry (no pairings at this time)

 _ **FYI -**_ "no pairings at this time" means **NO PAIRINGS AT THIS TIME!** , author's note contains information about where to go to see author's preferred pairing style, do not assume that this story contains any romantic information about the Boy-Who-Lived being gay in this story. If I had paired him, it would be in the character profile of this story's FFnet's search engine.

 _ **MY Inspiration:**_ Harry Potter (all media forms), Elder Scrolls "Oblivion & "Skyrim" (PS3 version, video games)

 **Disclaimer:** This is my standard disclaimer; I don't own anything in regards to the sources of _**MY**_ _ **Inspiration**_. All publically recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

All the characters, worlds, base concepts or general ideas are just a bit food for the writing bug. This story is pure fiction and is in no way meant to copy or reflect real life, events or people, should this happen then obviously it is pure coincidence.

 **Author's Note:** See author profile for preferred pairing style.

 **Important:** Initiated in 2013-06. Posted ' _ **as is**_ ' due to high demand for a sequel and this is what I had done so far. Not a cliff hanger.

 **Warning:** Be prepared for implications about Dumbledore's true motives and others without too many details. The author has never read, OoF, HBP or DH, but may take bits and pieces of them based on fanfiction stories that contained such spoilers or information from the web. There may possibly be some game spoilers, but since they've been out for a while judging by the amount walkthrough faqs and youtube 'let's plays' available, it's doubtful.

 **Summary:** End of Year 5 re-write, Char. Ooc, AU/AR, still within JKR's world and then some – Continued from Tiber's Compendium – Away at summer school in the US, Harry is not that unaware of what's happening in the wizarding UK. He still has to return for his fifth year to a whole new set of problems, including a Ministry plant inside his precious Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

 **Speech Legend:** (This is the standard by which I write most of my stories and therefore you will not see this repeated in future chapters)

"Normal"

' _Thoughts_ '

(…Other Languages/Mind Speak/Alternate Speech Patterns like sign language…)

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

 **CH 1**

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

The soon to be fifteen year-old looked at his magically blood adopted father, Remus Lupin. The man had been staring at the acceptance letter that his newly acquired by ritual magic and blood son, Harry Potter known as the Boy-Who-Lived, had received before the previous summer's holiday that led up to the boy's most eventful fourth year attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The man had been reading it or staring at different parts of the letter ever since his son had handed it to him.

They were currently traveling on the triple-decker purple Knight Bus and were headed to the joke research laboratory called the Marauder Mischief Lab or MML for short. It had been created in honour of the boy's biological father and the friends that the man had made when attending Hogwarts in his youth.

The two had gone from the platform nine and three-quarters straight to the Department of House-Elf Relocation with the purpose of getting at least a mated pair or maybe even three elves, who would be familiar with administration, cleaning and basic human infirmary or human medical emergency procedures. The elves were found, paid for and bonded to Harry because the Lab and surrounding property legally and magically belonged to him. The elves could be bonded to others, but needed a primary owner before the relocation department would allow them to leave their holding cells which made sense when things were done based on property ownership.

The elves promised to obey the others that may come into the Lab, but only after they saw the building and knew what their tasks were going to be. Harry had managed to get four house-elves for the place.

They were mated pairs because the male of one of the pairs was familiar with animal care which was going to be needed since the company planned to have on-site animals for fresh ingredient cultivation. The animals and gardens would supply items for potions and one of the females had experience with emergency first aid for a variety of beings including humans.

The Boy-Who-Lived had considered offering a family bond to Winky and Dobby, but planned to wait until he'd returned to the United Kingdom after his summer school in the United States. This had been on the advice from both of his fathers, when he talked to them about those two particular elves. He also felt the need to discuss a few things with the two freed elves before offering them a bond. He knew that Dobby would be disappointed if he didn't make him an official offer. As for Winky he truly felt sorry for the little female elf because her staunch loyalty and fervent love for her former family. She had been betrayed in the most upsetting manner this past year.

But for now the young Gryffindor only looked at his werewolf father and started to get worried because the man wasn't saying anything. He'd hoped it was the name of the school that bothered the man, but he strongly suspected that it was because of his chosen alias as the letter clearly started with:

… _Dear Mr. Snape…_

"Remus," Harry edged closer with a tray of tea and other treats that he had purchased from Stan Shunpike at the front of the bus. He placed it on the fixed table between the comfortable wingback chairs they were using for their journey. They were seated within a strong magical privacy barrier. "I made tea," he set the tray down and asked, "Father please, you're beginning to worry me. Is there something wrong with my letter?"

Remus sighed and asked, "Why the name Snape?"

"Because it's a name that I'd be least expected to use," Harry explained. "No one would think that I'd hide away under _that_ name. Snape is a pretty common name in the Muggle World and since I was basically raised there I figured that if I had to go back and hide there for some reason or another, I could easily do so with a name like that."

"Oh," the werewolf said. "No other reason?"

"What other reason could there be?"

"Maybe you learned how your biological father treated the man and you felt," he rubbed the back of his head. "You...might have felt guilty about what you'd learnt?"

Harry snorted and said, "It's not my place to feel guilty because my biological father and Sirius were gits to the man when they were schoolboys." He waved his hand to shoo away the coming protest. "Don't! I've already suspected something of that nature since Snape nearly always says the phrase, " _Arrogant, just like your father,_ " when it should have been quite obvious that I never knew James Potter. Besides Pettigrew had said pretty much the same thing," he shrugged and continued. "You know…about my dad being a bully to others when he was in school. He told me that just before he brought back the Dark Idiot, stating that he'd picked the right side."

"I'm sorry," Remus said with a saddened expression. "I'm sorry that you never knew your parents."

"It's okay. At the very least I know that they were human and prone to making human mistakes. I certainly know that they aren't Saints no matter how limited the information is that I keep getting about them," Harry explained as he put an arm around the man. "I've got you and Sirius now. As for my alias name, it's exactly that. An alias that protects me at my summer school. But it's also something that protects my summer school from the political happenings here in the Magical UK. They were grateful that I'd done it. It's only the Headmaster, Heinrick Orefuliman who knows my true name there. To everyone else there, I'm either Tiber, TJ or Mr. Snape."

"Surely they suspect who you really are," Remus said looking pointedly at the boy's magical scar.

"Ball caps or bandanas," Harry said. He put one on his head, pushing back his fringe and hiding his scar under the brim of the cap. The cap was a dark one with the word ' _Dodgers_ ' written in white. He changed his glasses for a slightly darker, lensed pair with a different shape. Just those two things had really hidden who he truly was. Although just the cap did it quite well without the change in the boy's glasses. The boy's scar was his unique and most identifiable feature to which anyone would know who he was in any part of the world where magic dominated.

"Why?" The man asked.

"The cap keeps hair from falling into our work. We really don't want any hair or foreign substances to end up in our projects. Even air bubbles are a failing offence at our current levels. That's how we all received J grades, meaning Junk, in the beginning of our first lessons with the smelter when we were trying to make pure bars of a singular ore. Our hair created air pockets which meant that the metal couldn't be worked on properly until they were smelted again. It kept happening until our instructors yelled at us to cover up our hair when we were working with any kind of metal," Harry explained.

"All the students were encouraged to wear something on their heads after we'd all experienced that kind failure several times. I know that we have pointed hats at Hogwarts, but not many students know to wear them during classes. They aren't mandatory, but really should be. At the very least for potions class, but Snape doesn't wear one so most students follow his example and slick their hair back. However some others don't do anything because of how it looks, but..." he shrugged since he couldn't figure out the others' mindset in those matters. "There you have it, I guess."

He then snickered and said, "You should see the stuff the others choose to wear at Canyon though. I've seen horned Viking-like helmets, multi-coloured beanies and pith helmets with fans, just to name a few. This one is pretty common for humans or so they told me when they saw me wearing it. The dark glasses are necessary for everyone though, even our instructors wear them most of the time since none of us want to be blinded in the school's hallways when we change classes."

"What do you mean," Remus asked. "What's wrong with the halls of your school?"

"They're gilded," Harry told him with a genuine laugh and smile. "The walls are full of precious gems and metals everywhere. The rumour about it is that it was once the central seat of Dwarven power before magical humans emerged above ground. It's also been rumoured that it had to be sold to the USA Ministry of Magic to pay back taxes or something of that nature. However the US Ministry couldn't just do anything they wanted with the place because of one of the conditions of sale. They had to turn it into a permanent school for _all_ magical beings or else the dwarves were going to gut the place in order to pay back what was needed. They'd have destroyed the monumental and natural ' _Grand Canyon_ ' feature which continues to gain a high revenue yearly from tourists, muggle and magical alike."

"I see," Remus said not really understanding the need for darkened glasses.

"You will," Harry said as he put on his regular glasses. "So are you going to continue to submit those DA Articles to The Underground Message?" The young Gryffindor asked.

"How do you..." the man paused and then said, "I didn't choose some kind of pen name to hide who I was."

"You're the only Professor RJ Lupin that I know," Harry said with a shrug. "So it had to be you. The articles are interesting and now that the Dark Idiot has come back I think more articles like that need to be produced, particularly about self-defence and home protection spells that the average witch or wizard can do. They have wands which gives them their own power to protect themselves. Besides everyone you taught at Hogwarts respects you and will read what you have to say."

"Do you have topic suggestions for me?" Remus asked as he drank his tea. "Or is there another reason you think I should continue to write for that particular paper?"

The boy talked some of the things that he'd like to see and said that he'd been silently supporting that paper for quite some time. "I funded part of it for just that reason," Harry confessed. "I also wanted to add some competition against the Daily Prophet and to have a way to prevent the Prophet from thinking that they could ever interview me or write articles about me. I'm still working on that second part though. They are quite persistent."

"I can do something about that now since I'm officially your Regent," Remus said. "It'll be my job and my extreme pleasure to see them sued for slander without having any basis for their accusations or suppositions." He finished his tea and looked up. "It looks like we're getting near to our stop."

"Next stop," Stan yelled out. "Sedlow Wood!" (...i...)

"That's us," Harry said excited to be visiting a place that he'd never seen even though he bought property in the area.

"Calm down," Remus said and smiled at the boy's enthusiasm.

They exited the bus at an old stone marker station in the middle of nowhere. It was a hidden apparition point that many witches and wizards can get to in order to call for the Knight Bus to take them to other places. It took them a day and half by bus to reach this point. They'd slept on the bus and when they'd awoken their beds had turned into the chairs that they had been using during their conversation.

They shouldered their bags.

Harry's school trunk was in his tent which was in his carryall, very convenient… storage magic that is.

Lupin had his own version of a carryall in the form of an old fashion carpet bag style made of leather. It had a lot of wizard space pockets and compartments in it for his use. It was very much needed when he had to live a semi-transient lifestyle due to this magical affliction of being a werewolf.

They watched the bus zoom away before Lupin took hold of Harry's arm for side-along apparition to the coordinates of the MML. They arrived in a fairly large gazebo like building with an Apparition rune circle of mosaic stones, marking out a pattern to indicate the location of where a person was. It was a stylized circle with three letter Ws in a triangle form with three pictorial symbols around the outside, of a stag's head on the right, a wolf's head on the left and a full image of a large seated dog at the bottom. (...ii...) All were inside a larger circle.

They looked into the old granary and large Floo pit that they'd decided to set up.

Harry was pleased to see the narrow cabinet with a door, next to the entrance. He opened it up and noticed that it contained a large jar of Floo powder, but also clipboard list that people needed to sign or check off a box next to their names before they could take a handful of powder. The floor that led from the pit to the entrance had that same logo in mosaic tile while the rest of the floor, around the pit was plain grey and white granite set up in a checked pattern.

"This is your idea right," Harry asked about the cabinet and clipboard.

"Yes," Lupin agreed. "I've already sorted out a few administrative things like that for ingredients and supplies. It's to track who takes what and it will also let us know when or if something is needs to be replaced before it expires or runs out. Now stand away from the pit and let the twins come through. I gave them a note to give to their parents to let them come through to this location for at least half an hour."

Green flames flared in the fire pit, George stepped into the room, followed by Fred. "Hallo Harry," Fred said and turned to Remus. "Thank Merlin you gave us that note to come through today."

"Mum was in a snit, but we're glad that you sent that note," George said. "Something's going on since she's packing up the house."

"I think that I know what's going on," Remus said. "But enough of that, the two of us have a boat to catch in the early morning."

"Come on guys," Harry said. "Let's check out the place and then I'll call the house-elves we just hired."

They took their time, but there was enough room for all of their ideas and they agreed that having some animals on site would help when they needed to acquire fresh ingredients and to just feed them when they needed to eat. The house-elf pairs were called and bonded to the company as well as to the Weasley twins in a looser bond than the one they had with Harry.

The elves scurried around to look about the place and asked permission to begin a garden.

"Send your requests in writing to Remus here," Harry said. "He'll see to it that you'll get everything you need okay. If you don't know how to read or write he'll teach you." That had been agreed upon with his father before to mentioning it to the elves who looked happy to be given the option of learning something new. "He's the General Manager of MML for now." He received nods from the little creatures. They turned to the twins and asked for a series of tasks that the boys needed done before they came back.

"We'll come back once we've passed our apparition tests," Fred said. "We'll bring you some things, but for now make sure that the kitchen is stocked with non-perishables."

"Settle in and find a place to stay for all of you," George said. "We'll work on getting to know your quirks as you learn ours, but no beating yourselves up and please clean up and find decent uniforms to work in."

"Make sure that your protected from anything harmful," Fred said and gave them all a small pouch that their ' _silent partner_ ' had made at the twins request. "These pouches are yours, wear them at your belts and keep them with you. Tie them to your personal magic if you can."

"These are your pay pouches," George said and held up his hand. "We need you to be able to get your own supplies and make your own uniforms. In that pouch is a uniform catalogue and we've marked the ones we'd like you to consider for the types of jobs you choose to do, understand. You'll need the money to buy them."

"The pouches also contain blanket permission slips to buy what you need and to charge them to our MML business account," Fred said. "Either the uniforms will be ready made or you'll have to make them yourselves. Enough of this, we're running out of time and Mum will go spare if we're late."

George nodded at the four little creatures, who chatted in squeaky tones about what their immediate masters had asked of them. The four turned to look at Harry since he was their primary bonded master.

Harry nodded and said, "I agree that you need to present a clean front. You know that having a uniform is not clothes. But I must insist that you wear good shoes whenever you go anywhere, unless they truly are uncomfortable to you, then I expect you to protect your hands, feet or any other exposed body part however you can with your magic. I won't be happy if any of you are hurt while you're in service to this place. It is an experimental lab and dangerous things may happen if you're not cautious."

The humans noticed how the elves cringed at the word experimental until Remus clarified, "This is a place to experiment on objects and humans only. The boys will not experiment on elves or other creatures without their permission. Your jobs are to ensure that this MML stays in one piece. You may come to me at any time you feel you need assistance or have questions about procedure since I'm the one that will be setting up standards of testing. Now off you go to get settled in. These two will come and go whenever they want to play around in the labs."

The four house-elves nodded, happy that they'd been given clear instructions and immediately set out to find a small bit of space or something to make a home.

"Choose a large closet," Harry called out to them. "One with a door that you can lock if you need to or else one that we can have a lock installed. Use spacing magic to make yourselves apartments or something. You can visit me too if you want some ideas, but not while we're traveling. It wouldn't be safe." The four little creatures nodded again and then left their young masters to find a place that they could call home.

"All right," Fred said. "Time to set up the Fidelius Charm and get back to Mum, she's panicky enough as it is." His twin nodded and they looked to the werewolf for guidance.

"The parameter wards are set," Remus said. "We need to step outside of the wards in order to cast the Fidelius Charm. Harry do you have an idea of how to allow them in?"

"Yep," Harry said as they all stepped outside of the warded area. "Bossy, Minx, Harpy and Sizzle, to me," he called to the house-elves. "We're setting up the charm we told you about so please stay beside me until it's done."

The little creatures waited patiently and let small exclamations of shock when their new home disappeared under the spell they'd been told about. They couldn't find it and pop back in there. Then they felt something go about their neck. A small silver amulet with a pearl like stone set in a wheel of runes.

"This necklace brings you home," Harry said. "Check to see if the magic allows you to get you there without seeing the place." The elves closed their eyes and felt the pull of their new home. They popped away and found that they were inside the warded place. They popped back to their master.

"Is this clothes young sir," Minx asked.

"No," Harry said. "They're just a tool, a special key that will take you home. You lose it, you'll have to call one of the others to pop you home and you must let Remus know about the loss. You cannot give these away and you can't remove them. They have self-cleaning and maintenance charms on them so don't worry about them tarnishing or that they'd even rust. There's still the chance that they will get worn down, but I don't expect that to happen anytime soon."

"This is good magic then," Bossy said. "We be going to new home now." She and the other three popped away following her. She wasn't given that name for no reason.

"Well that's good," Fred said. "What about us?"

"Do we get a nifty jewel too," George asked.

"Well," Harry rubbed the back of his neck.

"Oh, out with it," Remus huffed with a small smile on his face to let his son know that he wasn't really that upset about it. "You've had the time to think on it."

"Fine then," the youngest Gryffindor said with a playful huff. "Here," he handed them each a length of chain with a medallion that had two disks, one of metal and one gem like charm piece that twisted in place and looked like the logo on the floor of the apparition and floo points. Both disks had a set of runes letter and numbers etched onto their sides.

"Awesome," Fred said.

George said, "Wicked, how do they work?"

"How do you think," Harry asked.

"Harry we don't have time. Now tell us before we miss our check in time at the hotel," Remus said.

"Twins birthday and map passwords," Harry said. "Push your magic into them to take ownership. You can't give them away or lose them. Twist the two pieces to A and 1, three times counter-clockwise to lock them in position. Then say, ' _I solemnly swear that I'm up to no good_ ' and you should see in your mind's eye the two points of entry. You can choose either the Floo address which you already know to be ' _MML Sedlow Wood_ '. It will take you to the granary or you can use the apparition coordinates which are set to the gazebo. When you get here you must say, ' _Mischief managed_ ,' to disengage your amulets and gain entry onto the rest of the property. If they accidentally twist to your birthdays and you say the words it won't work because of magical intent and how they're programmed to be intentionally twisted and locked together with a chiming sound that will let you know it's been properly done."

"Wicked," Fred said.

George twisted his, when he felt the small click and heard the little tinkling sound, he was able to see the place, but couldn't cross the barrier. "What the..."

"Even if you can see it now," Harry said. "There're only two ways onto the property. Remus will you side-along us in there so that you two can go home by floo."

"I'll take you first," Remus said to his adopted son. He returned for the twins.

"Harry, what if we eventually want to show the place off to Mum or Dad," George asked.

"Here," Harry said and gave them a small box of similar medallions. The quality of those though were very cheap. "They're single use only and will dissipate after they arrive here. Nothing's needed to leave the place by apparation or floo other than marking down floo powder use. Tell me when you need me to make more charms, since I'm the secret keeper only I can make those. Right now you have ten in there and I think that should be enough for this summer. Take only one or two at a time with you and leave the rest here. Keep them either in the cabinet of the granary or in the attic office."

"Mischief managed," Fred said. His medallion became two pieces of metal with a gem in the boy's favourite colour that spun about lazily with magic. His brother copied him. "This is wicked, how did you ever think of it?"

"I had help," Harry said with a pointed look to his wolfish father.

"Right then," George said. "We must be off. See you sometime this summer, eh, Harry?"

"Sometime," Harry said and nodded. He shoved off their brotherly attentions and felt that his pockets had been stuffed with joke items from their shop. "Go on now and I'll see you later." The twins ran for the granary to floo back to the Burrow. He turned to his father and said, "Time to go?"

Remus looked at his pocket watch hanging from his vest pocket. "Yes," he said. He took hold of Harry's arm. "You have a good hold of your bags?" He received a nod. "All right then, we're off."

They apparated to Conigar Bog Harbour from there they caught the underwater sailing ship after spending the night at the local inn. It was a fast ship that would take them to the American west coast where they had to catch the tie-dyed rainbow coloured, triple-decker Knight Bus that would take them to the United States Grand Canyon Institute of Magical Learning.

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

 **TBC…**

(...i...) I used Google maps to find interesting names and places, for the location of the MML, this one looks to be in a forested area and secluded and I just liked how it sounded.

(...ii...) Image attached to author profile, created from images found in internet web, only bit of originality is the configuration of the logo, and all others belong to the original owners, either from deviantart or Browning Firearms (they had the best stag silhouette). I claim no ownership of the web images other than having configured them into the MML Logo. The logo idea is mine, of course.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer, Notes, etc:** See chapter one, from here on this will not be repeated.

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

 **CH 2**

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

Harry's muscles bulged with every clank of his ' _Repair Hammer_ ' against the metal shield that had been handed to him for the first exam of his summer classes in the Art of Re-Forging and Styling. He adjusted the heat, inserted the metal into it to turn it molten yellow-red without deforming it. Then he pulled it out again to work on it some more.

This was an exam on the strength of his forging skills and on the quality of his personally made repair hammers and other forging tools.

A hammer that broke too often was an indicator of the student's base forging skill or so the instructors thought and fully believed. It was certainly true that many students chose not to continue the program until they gained more skill ability in the Forging Arts. Some were just suited to making trinkets and other little things like latches, locks, amulets, rings, etc…. Most though, gave up on pursuing the intense field of study, sometimes by quitting the school altogether.

The Boy-Who-Lived would never opt for staying in England to reside with the Dursleys if he could help it, especially not when he'd been accepted into a summer school program that had suited him greatly.

He had received regular post owls from his two fathers about Sirius' trial because the date kept getting changed for some later time during the summer. The man was currently sitting in a holding cell since he'd turned himself into the Department of Magical Law Enforcement (D.M.L.E.) on the thirteenth of July. He hadn't wanted to go to them any sooner since the word had yet to get out about Peter Pettigrew having been the true betrayer of Harry Potter's parents.

The newspapers, magazines and other gossips rags were all saying nearly the same thing and they weren't very nice in their commentaries about the Ministry of Magic. If Minister Fudge didn't do something soon, the various rumours that a vote of no confidence would be called against him would no longer just be rumours. So far the man wouldn't budge in his opinions.

Technically Harry could go live with Remus, but the man had no permanent address yet so the boy continued his alternative education far away from the mess that was happening in his home country. The Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry had been surprised to see Remus attend the Wizengamot sessions in the Potter and Black seats and using those votes, but there was nothing he could do about it. The paperwork had been cleared for custody and the man was within the rights as Regent to be acting on behalf of the boy regarding votes in legislation. But since Remus never changed the boy's home address everyone assumed that the boy was still currently living with the Dursleys which was also what Albus Dumbledore assumed, believed and had always wanted.

Harry struck the metal one last time. He'd only lost two hammers before completing his piece. He dunked it in water to cool it off before he could examine it for imperfections. He had originally been tested on his work at a level of ability lower than those of his dwarven classmates. They had an inherent strength that surpassed a human by being seven to ten degrees stronger.

Harry's own strength had risen since he was blood adopted by a werewolf. So now there was more of a three to five point difference between him and most of his stockier, more muscled fellow students rather than the ten to twenty point differences in strength that the school allotted as compensation for human students when marking their work. His school records had been updated to include the adopted parental information including potential biological blood quirks. His change in strength had been tested and recorded only in his US Canyon school files. They did not need to exist anywhere else.

"Time," the instructor called. Some of the students hadn't finished their hammering to the point of putting their shields in the water to cool them down. They did so now and the room with the five testing students filled with steam. The students put their completed or incomplete pieces to their respective workbenches. They stood beside them at a military parade rest with legs apart and hands behind their backs, waiting until each piece in the room had been evaluated.

The three instructors walked about the room with clipboards. They had marked down on the boards how many times a student had to use a new repair hammer. They also noted the number of hammers remaining on the student's workbench.

All students had to have seven repair hammers on their workbench prior to a test. If they'd gone through all seven their grade would be J for Junk on the hammers they created. (…i…) If they broke six hammers they scored P for Pitted, and so on until a student only needed one hammer for the task, that student earned a score or grade of E, meaning Exquisite, for their hammer making skills.

Harry's hammer grade was S for Superior, a grade known as high-average. He was one of two students that had only broken two hammers. Breaking three or four hammers earned the students an N grade for Normal which was still a low-average passing grade. More than four broken hammers and it was a failing grade that the student received.

The instructors took each piece from the workbench. They inspected them thoroughly, moving them this way and that in order to judge the imperfections or improvements.

Points were deducted when the student hadn't finished the process, meaning the final dunk to cool it off had happened after the time ran out on the exam. Points were deducted if the metal shield had too many dents too. Since these shields had been created for ceremonial purposes, all of the students had to be careful when tempering them to improve their conditions.

The students were graded on their patience too, but since the exam was a small one with very few students they didn't have to wait too long to hear their results. The Head Professor said each student's name plus the final exam grade they received and provided forging advice for all of them to use or ignore.

"Apprentice Jonah Hammerfell, overall grade S, well done." Professor Orefuliman, the grandson of the Headmaster of the school said calling out the grades for the students. "Apprentice Ignick Mithril-Helm, Grade N, too many hammers Mithril-Helm, that last one looked like it was about to break with one more strike and your grade would have been very different if it had. Apprentice Tiber Snape, grade S. Do try to work on keeping the form as original as possible. Apprentice Angel Donaldson, grade N, too many dents and take care when smoothing the metal. Apprentice Bulltooth, grade FW (flawed), too many hammers, too many dents, you need to work on it son or else we'll send you down a rank for failing too many times."

The only goblin student, Bulltooth, hadn't been happy to receive this grade. The lower levels were easier, but he still had trouble finding the time between his studies in this field because of the ongoing expectations from those in his Family Clan that wanted him to attend accounting business school too. He was trying too hard to please too many people and the other students knew it.

Angel was the only other human in the program, along with TJ (...ii...) and the only woman. Last year's prediction about losing the third human, one Elias Archer, had happened. That young man never returned from his ' _adventure_ ' in one of the field-testing treasure mines. Stoneguard Bank had informed the school that the map that the young man had chosen to use, had returned to their archives without him.

"What's wrong Bulltooth," TJ asked as soon as they were dismissed from class. "You were doing very well in this last year. You should be passed the point of getting Flawed grades."

The young goblin sighed and said, "Goblin Business School gave out too much homework this past year. I had to get it done just so I could come here and I couldn't practice forging as much as I wanted to."

"My tutors always tell me to do the stuff I hate first," TJ told him. "Then I'd never miss on finishing the stuff I enjoy learning. Although I will admit that I had a hard time too. Last year in the middle of my school year it was difficult to get any kind of solid or extended time to practice, privately."

"I'm just trying to find a place that will let me work in peace," Angel said. "I've so many little ones clamouring for Nana's attention that I'm still at a loss of creating a space of my own." She used finger quotes when she was talking about a ' _space_ ' of her own.

She was vastly older than the other two humans when she'd started with the school last year. She'd already finished attending the Salem Witches Academy about fifty-seven years ago. She knew that TJ was another of her kind.

This school was just a post-secondary education for her since she had wanted to find a magical job that interested her. She'd only stumbled onto this type of magical skill set when she'd rifled through her great grandparents old belongings, found their journals and had found that she had a hidden talent with the older magical forms that didn't required a wand.

"Children will accept that you need time for yourself," TJ told her. "Just tell them that they can't disturb you unless certain conditions apply, like your house is on fire or something." He then turned to Bulltooth and said, "You need to make that same kind of declaration to your Clan. That is, if you're _really_ serious about this career path. I'll back your choices, if you need a backer." He paused and then grinned, spilling a secret of his, "However I find that warding a closet space somewhere and pitching your school tent in there can help to create a getaway place that no one can find especially if you use runes inside that closet ' _space_ ' to re-enforce notice-me-not charms and misdirection wards too."

This had earned him a full sharp toothed grin from the young goblin and a cackle from the old witchy matron. "You think outside the box," she said. "I like that. I have to go to the ' _girls_ ' dorm now." Again with the finger quotes, but TJ chuckled along with her. They had a dorm set aside for the females of magical creature species that attended the Canyon School, but frankly with some magical creatures like the high goblins and dwarven race, you really couldn't tell the sexes apart most times, other than by the pitch of their voice and sometimes not even then. She said to their goblin friend, "See you next class."

"Likewise," Bulltooth replied as they both knew that TJ was scheduled to leave the school again for another treasure hunting, exploratory session. It would be the boy's third time this summer, but they applauded him for taking advantage of the system to get freshly mined ore without having to pay exorbitant prices for them by going through the banks. He usually shared his finds with his friends of which these two were grateful when he came back with unique looking items to play with.

"Later," TJ said and left to go pack his equipment. He was in his dorm room packing when he was interrupted by someone who cleared their throat from the doorway.

"A word before you trek off Mr. Snape," Headmaster Orefuliman said.

"Sir," TJ stopped what he was doing and came to a parade rest position to wait.

"You're not in class," the old dwarf smiled at the human youth, who grinned back at him and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

"Yes, sir," TJ said relaxing his posture. "How can I help you?" He offered the old being a seat. He sat too waiting to see what the elder wanted.

The old dwarf was always surprised by the boy's politeness. "You're continuing your studies at that Wizard school of yours yes," the Headmaster asked and received a nod in agreement. "I was wondering what your projected plans were now that the Dark One has returned."

TJ sighed and said, "I was hoping to return here for my summers, but I have a feeling that next year and the year after may be difficult to do so unless the situation is resolved somehow. I'm at a place now that I'm bordering on Master Journeyman and Junior Expert in a few of my studies here, but I still would like to create my own spell making alter before I leave this summer. It might be useful for what's happening across the pond."

"True," the Headmaster said with a nod. "You've taken the accelerated program and have passed most of the basic requirements. However I don't know if you'll be able to make such an Alter until your magical core matures."

"What do you mean until my core matures," TJ asked. "I've never heard of that."

The old dwarf looked surprised. "You should have been informed of this in your third year of wizard school. A magical human will usually go through several stages of magical maturity. Your first happens approximately one year after your birth and the next may happen anytime between the ninth and eleventh human years usually at a time when the children get invited to attend magical schools. Your third stage is usually between your fifteenth and twenty-first year, it is this stage that I'm talking about. I know that you have not reached it yet since I cannot sense a change in your magical levels."

"I'm not yet fifteen," TJ acknowledged. "What are the other magical years of leveling? Are they attached to magical gifts or it is more about how much magical energy you can manipulate?"

"Sometimes there are gifts," the old dwarf explained. "Sometimes it's just access to more magical energy. There are two other stages that may or may not occur in human magical beings. One between the ages of thirty-five to forty-five and the final is at about one hundred and twenty-five, if you're lucky enough to live that long."

"I see," TJ said. "So without being aware of the stages, what may happen?"

"Your energies could be siphoned by someone through intimate activities, unless you are magically protected," the old dwarf said. "Potions can protect you as well as any personal and magically linked charm or amulet. Feel free to create whatever is most comfortable for you here. Wear or use them until you've passed your third stage, this is very important for your own protection and safety. I would dislike it if you'd lost all that magical potential because you were unprotected or unaware of your mystical rights."

TJ frowned, but nodded. "Yes, that is a good idea," he said. "Would you please recommend a Professor that can help me out with that?"

"See Augustus Hammerfell, you know the fourth year Alteration and Conjuration Professor," the Headmaster told him as he stood up to stretch his short legs. "He's the best and let him know that old Heinrick sent you. Don't let him tell you that he can't help you, although you may have to reveal your true secret to him to prove your sincerity in learning how to make such intricate creations. He's quite trustworthy even if he is a bit snippy about everything. The reason I've told you is that your spell creating alter project will have to wait until you pass the third stage of your magical maturity."

"I understand sir," TJ said and looked thoughtful.

"Also your two fathers wanted me to tell you about the human magical stages," the old dwarf said. "They feared that you may not have been told and they wanted to be sure that when you returned to the old country that you were fully prepared and protected for any kind of potential, socially awkward situation."

"May I buy a spell making alter, if I cannot create one," TJ asked. "Are there stores that will sell them?"

"Not stores," the Headmaster said. "The school can rent one to you, but you must bring it back so that it can be recharged. If you don't come back, you can send it to us through the banks like you did with your project studies. We can send you another that's fully charged or you can come and pick one up. If you have any that's been stored somewhere in your Family vaults you can use those if you're biologically linked to the family. Those may not require any recharge, but if they've been out of use they may no longer work or may require some fine-tuning. You can bring them with you and we'll teach you how to upgrade, repair and maintain them, instead of creating one of your own."

"May I still come back next summer," TJ asked. "Or continue my studies through correspondence?"

"Of course you may, but your current course of study in spell creation, will have to be halted on your day of birth this year if you do not go through your third stage of magical maturity. Also because of that you'll unfortunately be sent home early. That is how our current course schedules have been set up. Now that you're aware the conditions, we can sort through a correspondence program that will suit you for your fifth year in the human school and maybe help you to improve the studies that you're lacking at your other magical school?"

The Headmaster suggested with a pointed look since US Canyon had a copy of his current Hogwarts grades. "You're about to finish your second year of accelerated learning which completes the current part of the program, minus the final spell alter project. You may return for short course studies that only take about a month or so to do, but you may also choose to enter into another program. During those times you'd still be permitted to do some treasure hunting as well. You can bring your fathers along for that part if you think they'd enjoy following an old map and killing monsters with you."

"I'd really like that a lot sir," TJ said and perked up at the thought of traveling ancient tunnels with his two fathers. Exploring some forgotten dig and finding old treasure that the Bank would pay them to hunt for.

"We would too," the Headmaster said. "I will give you a list of classes that you're qualified to take without being in a particular program before you finish your final exams in your other two classes here."

"Thank you sir," TJ said and then asked. "Did you want me to use a particular map this time around sir?"

"You are a kind one," the Headmaster said with a soft, sad smile. "If you get the chance before the end of your summer program you might consider visiting the one that takes you through Bandit's Grotto to get you used to battling human opponents or perhaps Redthorn Cairn." The old dwarf left him there with that statement. He hadn't wanted to do it, but the boy had to realize that his opponents in his home country were mostly human and would likely die by his hand whenever they fought against one another or else the boy would likely come away injured or dead from such a confrontation if he was ever hesitant about taking decisive action or in taking a human life.

TJ gulped and then he continued to gather his items for the adventure he planned to take with the help of an old Stoneguard map. ' _Humans,_ ' he thought. ' _Did he just suggest that I hunt humans?_ ' He shook his head and then walked into his tent to consult with his portrait tutors on the matter. ' _Hunting humans, what the hell?_ '

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

Days later TJ killed his Nth human being, if you could call murderers, bandits, rapists and other foul things human to begin with. He'd followed his Canyon School Headmaster's advice plus that of his fathers' who'd agreed that he needed to know how to handle himself against human opponents. He'd sent them a quick owl and received a reply confirming that they'd asked the Headmaster to recommend human targets or locations for practice to prevent battle hesitation.

He had finally chosen to visit the Bandit's Grotto. The map looked to be complete, but he was suspicious because final area looked to have a large body of water and his Headmaster knew that he had made an underwater breathing ring the year before. It was a location that could not have been explored extensively without muggle diving equipment and there had been no magical equivalent until he had completed project for his Senior Novice levels in Alteration and Illusion studies.

He started out slowly in the beginning, much like his other times and he was glad that he did. The whole place looked like it had been infested with true bandits and really nasty marauders. Some were of part-human, part-magical creature descent; others were, unfortunately, all too human and just plain nasty to begin with.

Upon first entering the old fortress ruin, in a crouched and sneaking position, he heard someone up ahead of him. The person had spotted him fairly quickly since he moved a little too fast at one point, but they had attacked him immediately. He hadn't really thought that another human would attack him without provocation, but there it was. He was in the position of being attacked first before being questioned.

He'd thought that it might have been because he'd entered in a crouched and sneaking position. His next encounter had occurred when he was walking about quite normally, if a little more silently in case there were other creatures in the building that would attack him like diseased rats or some such. He may have walked slower and with more caution, but he didn't look to be sneaking around. The humans in the mixed stonework and underground cavern still attacked him without questioning his presence there at that time either. So he'd made the difficult decision to sneak and remain hidden as much as possible, killing before they spotted him in the passageways.

The rest of his time had been ' _kill or be killed_ ' situations. So he killed them first, looted their corpses for spoils and then made the second most difficult decision in his life…to continue on through these older tunnels and get to that underground lake. He'd known then that anyone he encountered in this place that he'd have to strike first. He didn't kill anyone that he found in the prison cages though, but he did open them to allow them to go free since they didn't act with any hostility towards him.

Most chose to wait until the opportune time arose for them to leave. Others took off in the wrong direction and died because they'd activated some deadly traps in the distance. TJ did offer most of them the advice to follow the path that he had used to get to this location in the first place since he knew that the path behind him had already been cleared of the bandits and marauders.

After the second day his jitters had died down and his tutors had ordered him to take a Mild Calming Draught, find a safe place to fully sleep before making a decision to continue or turn back. "Why," TJ had asked through chattering teeth sipping hot tea. "Why did he suggest this place?"

"He knows that you're going to be fighting humans when you return to England," Rowena said.

"I killed my first human when I was thirteen," Godric told him. "I was doing it in defense of my home. You can walk through here and defend or strike first as a pre-emptive defence, but no one would fault you for striking first in a place like this or against these particular men and women with such low morals."

"Isn't it wrong to kill them the way I do it," TJ asked. "I'm taking them down from behind and most times they barely know I'm there."

"It might seem cowardly if what you're looking for is a fair fight or a formal duel," Tiber told him. "However think about it for a bit. What if you charged through here, letting them all know where you were?"

"Yeah," TJ said with a nod and sigh. "They'd gang up and it'd be that much more difficult to complete the task," he recalled the days when Dudley's little posse would gang up on him to hunt him down and beat him, until he became the faster runner. "I would likely die doing it that way. It'd be just like the graveyard situation all over again, only with swords and arrows rather than with multiple spells. I'm just lucky they don't have guns because of how magic affects muggle processed items."

He sighed after he'd put the situation in perspective in his mind. He wouldn't be charging through a place infested with Death Eaters where magic would be his disadvantage because of his age and everything that he had not yet learned. He'd have to take these bandits down one a time and hope that they wouldn't raise some kind of alarm. He now had practical experience in what could be deemed necessary force when fighting against another human with his bows and swords.

"That's right young man," Helga said with a nod. "It's not cowardly to take out the enemy from behind. But you're getting the knack of figuring out who's your enemy in this place without being too up close and personal. Best take them out from a distance if possible, less chance of getting severely injured and leave no enemy alive behind you or else if they survive, they may more than likely retaliate."

"Yeah, I guess," he replied. "I still feel bad about it."

"Of course you do," Tiber said. "You're human so of course you should feel bad about it. Tell me, would you feel just as bad if it was bunch of house-elves or dwarves that were fighting you?"

"Of course I would," TJ declared. "There's no difference between sentient species to me. Although I think that I'll make an exception for the feral low goblins that infest these old caves, they're just awful and they smell bad too. There are more of them and they're nastier than the ones that run Gringotts or attend US Canyon with me."

"Good," Godric said with a sharp nod. "Always keep that in mind and you'll do fine. Now show us some of the goodies you've managed to take from these foul excuses for humans." He turned away and muttered, "There's always one what falls far from the family tree anyway. Did you find any more Galleons with low serial numbers?"

TJ showed them some of the armour that he obtained. Most were Fur Armour, but a few had some that were composed of heavier pieces of armour and several were made of a higher grade of steel. "I'm going to disenchant some of them since I haven't been able to find an equivalent spell for these particular enchantments that they seem to be carrying. These others, well I'll see if they can be re-forged to fit a smaller body. If so then I might just donate these to the school as test or work pieces."

He took a pouch from his waist and dumped the contents on a long table. He sifted through the different coins found and separated out the magical ones versus the truly muggle ones. "I think I have a few here that I'll need to double check," he looked up from his triage of coins. "There are a couple that I know muggle collectors would go mad for, but they'd need to have confirmed history on the coins or some paper indicating where I'd gotten them from. Maybe I'll make up a distant relative who collected them over time. Children don't usually care about origins and would normally never have patent papers for them."

"Sound reasoning," Rowena said. "What of the map? How much further do you think you have to go to get to the centre or heart of this place?"

"I've traveled down three levels," TJ said and pulled out the map. "It looks like there's one last level below. The map shows one final set of stairs down which's got a notation next to it that says _final level_ , so I believe there's only one left."

"Well that's good," she said. "I don't like the fact that they sent you after humans this soon, but I can understand their reasons."

"I can too," TJ replied with honesty. "The Death Eaters in my country are humans and I will have to fight them at some time in the future. I know that others are trying to protect me from ' _growing up too soon_ ', but frankly it's a little late for that."

"I'm sure that you'll make them understand that," Tiber said. "Someday…"

"When you finish this adventure," Godric said. "I've got an idea on how to help your father, Sirius, renovate his old family home. How's he doing anyway?"

"Still upset that the trial hasn't taken place," TJ said. "The Ministry's dithering again, but at least he's permitted to reside in his old family home under some kind of magically modified house arrest spell until the trial does take place. I'm hoping to get back in time for it. What's your idea?"

"Oh no," Godric said. "You hold onto the thought of some future fun and we'll discuss it before you begin your travel back to England. You'll need to have someone take you to a magical shopping alley in this country and that's all that I'm going to say on that subject."

TJ grinned and nodded. He made a note of it in his idea book since it was the one book that he knew he didn't want to lose. "All right," he said and then he put the book away. "Now that I have a knack for the feel of Occlumency and both my father and dad say that I'm doing quite all right in that area. Do you think that I should practice doing the Legilimency spell on the bandits I come across?"

"That's a sticky point," Helga said. "It might help to figure out their intentions, but I don't see any reason for you to taint yourself by doing such a thing in this place. Although practice would make it perfect unfortunately I wouldn't recommend it, not at this time and definitely not here."

"I agree," Tiber said. "Wait until you're with someone you trust to help you, just in case you get stuck in the mind of another. It's been known to happen and the results of disentanglement are not envious to anyone."

TJ swallowed at the thought of being stuck in someone else's mind without being able to leave. That's how it felt the few times he failed to block the Dark Idiot when he felt overworked or he had been running on very little sleep without occluding properly. He wouldn't have wanted that to happen while he was exploring some bank map and it was a good point.

This place was not the right location to experiment with such a thing at least not without some kind of aid. Suddenly he had an idea for something of that nature and made several notes before putting away most of his finds.

"All right, I agree with you guys," TJ confessed. "Especially when you put it that way," he sighed and then looked to the door of his hidden tent. "Let's get the final leg of this hunt done. I'm going to have a good break down and fall into shock about it much later. Probably as soon as I can do so safely away from this place, meaning preferably back in the safety of US Canyon."

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

 **TBC…**

(...i...) Grading System Re-Cap:

 **Hogwarts**

 _ **Pass**_ (Double OO exist for above outstanding)

O=Outstanding

E=Exceeds Expectation

A=Acceptable

 _ **Fail**_

P=Poor

D=Dreadful

T=Troll

 **US Canyon School**

 _ **Pass**_ (Flawless (FL) exist for grade above Exquisite)

E=Exquisite

S=Superior

N=Normal

 _ **Fail**_

FW=Flawed

P=Pitted

J=Junk

(…ii…) Harry Potter = Tiber James Snape. By an alias spell done in story Tiber's Compendium


	3. Chapter 3

**CH 3**

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

Harry was alone for his return trip to England. He hoped to have returned by August tenth. He had no choice at this point in time, but to go home earlier. His parents had already been notified that he was on his way and he was meeting someone at the MML.

He'd taken all appropriate precaution and used his personal version of the Masking Vapours Potion during travel. It was the one that lasted longer than the original formulation. It had been something that he'd researched for a special exam project during his fourth year. It was a personal project that he'd been given by his potions teacher of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Professor and Potions Master Severus Snape.

Harry had been grateful for his version because it lasted a lot longer than the ten minutes for the original formulation. He had needed use it and with good reason too. He needed the privacy of anonymity during any kind of lengthy excursions into places with plenty of magic like the magical shopping alleys found in the USA or UK. His face had been splashed across the papers because of the events that had happened during the Triwizard Tournament.

He hadn't wanted his fellow travelers freaking out about the fact that ' _The Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived_ ' had been on the same ship they were. He certainly didn't need any questions from anyone about his reason for not living in England where everyone believed he was supposed to be.

The ship taking him home had several back issues of the Daily Prophet. He wanted to read them in private and had learnt a nifty trick when reading any magical newspaper or magazine in the Wizarding World. It was a simple charm which sorted the articles and content by order of importance to him.

Everything that mentioned You-Know-Who or He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named came first in his preferred reading list. It was followed by any Ministry of Magic news and then anything that referenced him by name or by his news title, the Boy-Who-Lived, came third. This way he'd find out anything related to him more quickly in relation to the Dark Lord or the Ministry. All the rest of the news and such were then sorted by his personal interests like any essays on Defense Against the Dark Arts (DADA), International and National Quidditch scores, items for sale, etc…

So in reading the back issues of the Prophet he not only found out that the UK Ministry of Magic had inferred that he was an attention seeking brat with a potentially mental situation, but that an attack of Dementors had occurred in a muggle town called Little Whinging in Surrey. The article said that the Dementors had killed four muggles at their residence just as they had sat down to dinner because the house had not been properly warded.

Although there had been extensive rumours that it had been the home of a muggle-born student which should have been magically protected at the time the student started Hogwarts. All muggle-born students were supposedly gifted with Ministry approved wards, installed by the Professors that came and guided the muggle-born families through Diagon Alley for their first time in the Wizarding World. The standard wards usually included Notice-Me-Not charms and magical creature repelling charms.

What was telling in the article was the fact that they: one) didn't name the family, two) didn't indicate if the house had been under proper wards at all and three) didn't mention anything about any official investigation into the matter.

The young Gryffindor had the sudden and not so nice thought that, ' _Maybe it was the Dursleys and odious Aunt Marge._ ' He shrugged and then figured that if it had been, his fathers would have told him about it before now. ' _But that's not something that you can really write in a letter._ ' He paused to think about it some more and then made the decision. ' _I'll ask them about it when I see them later._ '

The underwater sailing ship was coming to the same port that Remus had taken him to at the beginning of summer. The werewolf had sent him a letter telling him to use the Floo at Bogtrot Taverna to go directly to the MML. Someone would be along to pick him up and take him to a new location for the last few weeks of his summer holiday before he started his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Remus had been told about the potion that young Harry had made to help Sirius out when the man had needed to visit human places to take care of Black Family business while he'd still been on the run from the Ministry of Magic. The boy had preferred to use it to hide his famous scar and eye-colour. He never changed much about his appearance or else the potion's masking ability would crack under the pressure of too many requested changes.

Harry hitched his carryall onto his shoulder, stepped off the ship and made his way to the Taverna just opposite the ship's disembarking plank. He left some coin on the mantle of the public Floo to pay for the powder he used. As he waited for the incoming clients to leave the Floo area, he then twisted his MML medallion into position so that he could gain knowledge of the address. He quickly stepped into the fireplace and said in a clear tone, "MML Sedlow Wood."

It didn't matter if someone had heard him since without the charmed necklace they couldn't follow him. The name of the place or rather the Floo address was actually under a little known charm called ' _Taboo_ '. (…i…) The conditions of a ' _taboo_ ' word, varied under a specific caster's conditions.

For his choice, the floo address could only be said when the medallion was in its properly activated configuration. Should someone try and follow him they'd bounce Floo stops and forget where they were going in the first place. He had thought to do the same with his own name, but it would have been too complicated and there was nothing that his name was tied to other than the title Boy-Who-Lived.

Harry stepped out of the Floo into the circular granary room for his research lab. It was a lab that he'd set up before leaving to continue his education at the Canyon School for the research of all things joke, prank or toy.

He looked at his new magical pocket watch that had been a gift from both of his fathers. It said, " _Time to wait._ " He had only four faces on the watch, his own and then one for his adopted father Remus Lupin and one for his dad, Sirius Black. He smiled because he'd been very happy to receive such a thoughtful gift.

The fourth face contained the actual time in a round, faced ticking clock image with numbers written in their ancient rune form in an old Gaelic language. He had the options available to change numbers to any language form that he preferred and one day he knew that he'd change it to an old form of Gobbledegook just for the fun of it.

His parents had added a few time categories and promised to show him how to add and create more personal ones. So far they'd added, ' _Time to Prank_ ', of course, ' _Time to Study_ ', ' _Time to Fly_ ', ' _Time to Wait_ ', and a few others like ' _In Transit_ ', ' _Medical Emergency_ ', ' _Dark Idiot Issue_ ', ' _Home_ ', etc… It was far better than Vernon's old wristwatch that he'd finally thrown away since it never truly worked well after his fat cousin had sat on it at some point. Plus they had matching linked ones with the same features as his so that they all knew where the others were and in that manner they all had some peace of mind.

This new pocket watch was tagged to his magic and he'd made a beautiful length of chain in his jewelry making and charms class for it. The class was a rare option for him, but since he'd been disappointed to not have matured magically after his fifteenth birthday. The Headmaster of the Canyon School advised him to attain a few extracurricular classes to round out his education in the field of metal working or whatever class caught his fancy.

He wasn't eligible to create a personal Spell Making Alter which was one of the final projects that the students in his current program had to make in order to finish the course requirements and graduate from their chosen field of study at a Master Journeyman or Junior Expert level.

He needed to have passed his third stage of magical maturity in order to ' _power_ ' the Alter before being able to use it properly. Because he hadn't passed the third stage, he was only permitted to rent one for use and practice during his fifth year at Hogwarts, but the device needed to be returned the following year in order to be recharged. He planned to return to the school to take other courses which would expand in his knowledge in the other Schools of Magic unrelated to enchantments and forging. Also he hoped that he had a spell making alter somewhere in his personal vaults that he could tinker with and bring along with him in order to learn how to fix and maintain it.

Harry walked through the MML and noticed that two of the potions labs had been used based on the number of stains found on the tables in the rooms. He walked up to the main office and placed a box on the desk with a tag that said, ' _For R &D_'. In the box there were plenty of magically preserved candy and toy items from the Muggle World. He'd looked into the US ' _Dollar_ ' Stores and other Penny Candy or Five and Dime stores. He'd goggled at the enormous variety available as he'd never had the opportunity to explore those types of stores in his home country as a child.

His friends from the Canyon School had taken him to a magical alley to see the difference between his home magical alley and that of another country. He'd been told that larger cities had magical alleys of their own and each state in the good 'ole U.S. of A. had at least three magical shopping districts of various sizes, including actual and entirely hidden Magical Shopping Malls.

He'd asked several store proprietors and had been informed that many muggle items can be converted over to a magical equivalent as they didn't contravene any laws, but only as long as they were fundamentally different from their originals. He'd even bought muggle board and card games to make into magical equivalents, some of which were in the box with tags and notes that contained ideas on how to possibly convert them. Several of his favourites were in his carryall to see if Professor Flitwick would allow them to be used as Charms projects or Professor McGonagall as Transfiguration projects.

"Harry," a loud voice yelled from below.

"Coming," he yelled back. He picked up his carry all and ran down the stairs. He grinned when he saw who it was. "Sirius," he ran forward and was enveloped in strong arms of his godfather-dad. "I missed you, Dad. Did they finally pardon you?"

"I missed you too, son," Sirius said. "I'm sorry to have missed your birthday, but you did get our parcel via Remus."

"I did," Harry replied with a smile. The box he'd received had been huge, but it had contained all of the gifts that his friends had sent to him. The twins had sent some of the pranks that they'd been working on with the hope that he'd get to test them out and they'd also sent him a dark red, green and gold plaid covered diary, the twin of two others that they kept on hand and carried around jotting down their thoughts and business ideas.

It was one of their products for their ' _best friends_ ' category of items. They were paired diaries (for girls) or journals (for boys). The different sexes were touchy about the names of things especially in the cases of personal recording devices and the colour them. Still it was a tester diary and was primarily used for his joke item ideas or to help the twins out with a tricky spell or charm or in giving them suggestions or the results of the prank tests that he'd done at his school with the permission from his fellow student colleagues who permitted the pranks to take place.

He didn't think that he could contribute much since his spell repertoire was limited, but he had given them ideas for effects for which they'd been grateful. They encouraged his ideas and highly encouraged him to ' _borrow from the muggles_ ' whatever he'd thought would be most fun or useful.

"You're dodging the question," Harry said as he pulled back to look the man in the face. "Did the Ministry give you a full pardon or not?" 

"They didn't," Sirius told him with a frustrated sigh. "I'm still technically under house arrest, but am permitted to travel by Floo to look after the Black Family business interests. You might be summoned to testify in court, but I'm hoping that everything can be resolved soon."

"I hope so too," Harry said. "You're innocent, so why are they delaying this?"

"I don't know pup," the ex-convict said. "I just don't know." After a final hug and a pat on the boy's head, ruffling the already messy hair, the man asked, "So are you ready to see the Black Family Home of which you are now the heir and full inheritor. The only one to which I give full authority to make changes about the place. The papers are at home to sign over ownership."

"Your letters were very clear," Harry said with a nod. "Are you sure about the old house-elf though?"

"You'll see him for yourself and then you can judge the best course of action to take," Sirius said. "I just don't know? We need the help to maintain the place and, well... you'll see what I mean?"

Harry nodded. "If it's mine to do as I wish then I know just where to begin. I do have to see the place and sign those papers first."

"One question before we go," Sirius said and received a nod. "Did your short Headmaster explain about magical maturity?"

"He did," Harry said. "Thank you for seeing that it was done, I made several charms and added them to the chain for my watch and on a few other things about my person too." He jangled the chain to show that he had several charms and a few personalized, protected seals for writing letters.

"I didn't gain anything on my birthday," he said in a sour tone. "I was told that it's normal. Apparently the more powerful the magic, the later it will happen or so they told me." He shrugged and continued, "I think they were trying to ease my mind about it."

"Actually that's a true fact for magical humans," Sirius said as he handed his son a piece of parchment. "Here," he said. "Read that and use the floo powder when you do."

Harry looked at the parchment that said, ' _The Headquarters for Order of the Phoenix is located at number twelve Grimmauld Place, London_.' (...ii...) He picked up a handful of floo powder and initialed the clipboard located inside the cabinet before he stepped on the fire pit and repeated what had been written on the piece of paper.

As soon as he said the words, "Number twelve Grimmauld Place, London," the floo system activated and he was whisked to a new location. He tumbled out of the fireplace into a parlour like room. The room was dusty and grey with spots of faded colour in the furniture. He moved out of the way when he felt the flare of magic behind him and watched as his father stepped out of the fireplace.

"Gloomy, isn't it," Sirius said with a frown. "We've been trying to clean the place, but it feels like the gloom has been imbedded into the very foundation of the place."

"Gloomy yes," Harry said, "But not without some character. We'll just have to bring that out and make this place a home for now. It's nothing that a good coat of paint can't cure or that's what's been commonly said in the Dursleys' neighbourhood whenever they needed me to paint the fence, the house, the garage or something." He looked at the man's stricken face and asked, "What's wrong?"

"I can't believe I didn't tell you this, but…" Sirius paused and then he continued. "They're gone…dead, I mean."

"So they _were_ the ones that the Dementors had attacked then," Harry said. He turned away and said, "I read something about that on the ship when I was traveling back here. I'd wondered if it had been them or not."

"How do you feel," Sirius asked.

Harry shrugged and said, "Relieved that they're gone. Glad that I'll never have to return there, but that's about all there is to it. Sad that they're dead…" He looked to his father and received a nod. "No...I'm not sad about that. I'd cry and be upset about people I cared about, but not them. I'm sure that I'll grieve for them in some fashion later because they lost the chance to become better people. I know that at least Dudley had the potential to change because he was younger, but right now I'm not sure how I feel about them being gone."

"I see," Sirius said and he did. There were people like that in his family and he knew that he'd just as soon spit on their grave rather than shed a tear over them. "Well… come on then. I'll introduce you to some of the members of the Order."

In Grimmauld Place, several members of the Order of the Phoenix were hanging around, waiting to see and meet the famous Boy-Who-Lived, Harry Potter. Sirius walked him into a very crowded kitchen where many were tripping over themselves to greet him and shake his hand.

Harry stood there with his arms behind his back at a parade rest position and refused to shake hands with anyone. Many of the Order felt the frosty chill zoom up their spines or zaps of static shock from the boy's magically protective rings and earrings that they couldn't see.

"Hello all," he said in a bland tone. "I know you've come here to do business, so quit your gaping and get to it. I'm just a boy and I don't appreciate being stared at." He paused in his speech and then he continued. "Sirius has told me that I have ' _carte blanche_ ' to remodel this old place however I choose to and I've had plenty of time to think about it." He looked at each of them in the eye to ensure they knew what he saying and that it registered. "You'll confine your comings and goings to the back entrance and to the large dining room after I've cleaned it up. The front entrance with the portrait hall is now off limits due to construction. Be sure to spread the word, won't you? It's for your own good and all that, thanks."

He left the adults standing there stunned with their mouths open.

"Well done son," Remus said as they left the kitchen where the majority of the adults started whispering loudly about the rude little boy. "Very well said, but..." He glanced back and noticed that Snape's expression was slightly amused, but most adults didn't like being told what to do especially by a fifteen year old child. "You're not going to makes friends being rude like that. Also you should set up some kind of notice at the front door in case we can't get to everyone."

"I'll look into that later," Harry replied with a nod. Then he grinned and bounced, "Show me the family quarters so I can pick out my own room. Please!" He'd been excited about that since he'd never had a choice before in his life. His parents looked at him indulgently as they'd already heard his story about the cupboard under the stairs and the smallest room in the house.

"This way pup," Sirius said. "You're sure you don't want to stay near your friends?" The young Gryffindor shook his head.

Ron and Hermione hadn't written to him once this past summer. The twins had. So had Luna and surprisingly Neville too had sent him notes, brief letters and scraps of news-clippings to let him know what was going on. They'd even sent him interesting gifts for his birthday which he'd sent them thank you cards and impromptu or belated gifts for their birthdays in return.

He'd been able to read new information on his return trip he got caught up to the goings on in the news, but at least they had communicated with him.

But his two self-proclaimed, ' _best friends_ ', not a peep or anything, not even some cheap birthday card came to him by way of Remus. He may be the Boy-Who-Lived, but he didn't have time to play a game of ' _today we're your friends, but tomorrow we're not_.' The papers were lying and the Minister of Magic for the British Wizarding World obviously had his head uncomfortably up some nasty orifice to be allowing the people of his society to continue believing that the Dark Lord had not returned.

Luckily he was thinking proactively after having been introduced to the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement (D.M.L.E) last year. He'd sent her a petition for Ministry Sanction with that department and with the Department of Magical Education in order to be able to take his training for Defence Against the Dark Arts class into his own hands.

He'd done this before he left for his summer school. He had sited facts and explained that he'd barely learned anything from this first two years at Hogwarts. Even his fourth year education was suspect because a Death Eater had been instructing them.

Although his petition was specifically outlined as ' _A Specialized Study Group for Select Individuals to Research and Learn Ancient Magical Arts,'_ he was clear in his request and had provided examples of the materials he was looking to learn which include a physical training program. So far he hadn't received anything by owl post related to his obscure primitive magical studies request.

Sirius led Harry through part of the main floor after the boy had made his announcement. He had been one of the ones to smirk at the tone of voice that his son had used and at the reactions that the adults felt when they'd stared for too long.

"This way," he said. "The family quarters are up this way. Mother's room was at the end of the third floor. It had been her choice to live down there after my father passed away. Third floor's actually the level for guest quarters and where all the Weasleys, plus Miss Granger have been staying." He snickered and then said, "I put Buckbeak in mum's old third floor room for the time being."

Harry gave a chuckling snort and said, "Who else is on the third floor?"

"Just them," Sirius said. "I put them there for their safety. There have been a few attacks and they were worried. Fair warning though, Molly's taken over the kitchen." He showed the boy the entrance to the fourth floor and said, "You can have your pick of rooms up here. There's one more level, but it's just attic space right now."

"Can I see the attic," Harry asked after he'd poked his head in a couple of the rooms. The entrance to the final floor was through a closet door which the boy snickered appreciating the irony. The place was a treasure trove of old items that had been stored away over time. They weren't deemed to be of value because they were here instead of in a secure vault at Gringotts.

The attic was a room onto itself. It could have been deemed a studio apartment rather than just an attic. The roof was high enough for all of them to stand tall and the space was occupied by old trunks, boxes and covered frames of paintings no longer on display, hidden away because of some kind of family shame related to them or thought of as too old to be displayed.

Harry came down from there and chose the room next to the attic door. "This one, plus the attic, please," he turned to look at the man he called his Dad. "Will that be all right? Is it too much to ask for?"

"It's perfectly fine," Sirius nodded, "It's not too much to ask for." The man said hugging the boy who was nervous at the thought of asking for too much. "In fact, you can have it all," with that he flourished the deed of Grimmauld Place, complete with the transfer of ownership papers containing all appropriate lines and circles for signatures and drops of blood. "Sign if you please and then you can do what you like to the old place."

"Are you sure about this," Harry hesitated.

"For the love of Light Magic," Sirius huffed with arms and hands flopping up and then down. "This house needs someone young to own it. You've sent me some brilliant ideas to fix up the place, but I couldn't even do much." The man rubbed the back of his neck and said, "Between the Order meetings, my mandatory confinement and the old memories I have of this place," he paused and then continued. "Which tend to keep cropping up at the wrong times, I'm more inclined to burn it down. This house needs someone young to take hold of it before it's too late and magic can't fix it."

Harry bowed his head and sighed. He'd understood where the man was coming from and he knew that his dad was afraid of changing everything too much because he'd been in prison for so long. He made his decision and asked, "Do you still have the letters I sent you?" They both nodded. "All right then," the youth said. "Give me the quill. I'll do it, but we'll make it a home to come to or at the very least some place fun to stay when we need to visit London. Okay?"

Remus watched all of this with amusement and sadness. He remembered the stories that the ex-con marauder had told them about this place when they were in school. He was happy that his son had decided to take over the ownership of the place. It still felt oppressive. Almost like the mood of the house was linked to the master of it and his old friend still hadn't had enough time to recover from his prison experiences.

Sirius just watched as his adopted son signed the papers, complete with the single drop of authenticating blood in the confirmation circle. "Where did you learn blood quill protocols?" He asked. "When did you learn?"

"I didn't really learn," Harry said. "I had to sign some papers and contracts for the MML plus I'd placed gaming bets with the goblins and dwarves during the Quidditch World Cup last year. But I never really learned much about them. Do you think the library here has a book on the subject?"

"It's got a book on nearly every subject," Remus said. "I'll find a couple of good ones that I think you should read. They won't be schoolbooks, but ones that will help with your MML project and tell you more about blood quill protocols. I'll make sure that you have some on ritual magics and bodily components too." The young man looked quizzical. "You need to know how to protect yourself from the theft of your identity. How to keep people from obtaining normal things like hairs from your head to the blood used to create personalized potions and how to know when it has been taken or used against your will."

"How come we're not taught that in first year," Harry asked in a horrified tone. He thought about his second and fourth year events with the Polyjuice potion.

"Policy or something," Sirius said. He signed his part on the forms. As soon as his signature was on them, the forms popped out and popped back with notarized seals indicating that everything was legally transferred. A note was attached to his from his family lawyers, indicating that the current Fidelius Charm had a time limit of one year and needed to be re-done with the new owner's permission.

"What's that," Harry asked.

"You know that your parents were hidden under Fidelius," Remus said. The boy nodded. "Right now the secret keeper for the Order of the Phoenix is Albus. It's what we did for the MML, where you're the secret keeper remember, only without a time limit?"

"So the Headmaster has given out the location of this place to a whole bunch of strangers," Harry asked with a frown.

"Only on pieces of parchment to new people coming to the place," Sirius said. "As the former owner and resident along with Moony we were in the place when the charm was laid. We don't need a piece of paper telling us where it was."

"Actually it's the name that's secret," Remus said. "The Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix is the secret. Number 12 Grimmauld Place is not the secret, it's just unplottable."

"That is just confusing," Harry said and shook his head to clear it.

"I believe you'll be learning about the basics of it this year in charms class," Remus said.

"Okay then," the young Gryffindor said. "I guess I can wait on it."

"Of course you can," Sirius said. "Now about your room and the attic, what are your plans?"

"Cleaning it and making a place for me," Harry said. "What about you which rooms are yours?"

"I was staying in Regulus' room on the third floor," Sirius said as he rubbed the back of his neck. "I suppose I could claim his old room on this floor too."

"He had two rooms," Harry asked in a surprised tone.

"Of course," Sirius said. "Whenever we had company or friends over, we stayed in our chosen third floor guest rooms. The rooms up here are private and inaccessible to anyone, but blood family. Ron's staying in a guest room that was designated for children because of the two single beds in it. It's just like the room that Ginny and Hermione are in. I had one with bunk beds which is where the twins have chosen to stay."

"Oh," Harry said. "Well then, take your pick of rooms up here, you too Remus since you're actually blood family to the owner of the house. It's probably why you were able to even come up here too since you're both linked through the blood adoption to me." He stated with a grin. "You wouldn't have been able to stay up here, if you weren't. That is, if I understand the magic of this place." His grin was echoed in the faces of the other two men, who nodded and went about looking into the rooms before selecting a couple of them to claim as bedrooms and private out-of-the-way offices.

The young man dropped off his carryall in his room and then asked loudly, "Can I call for unbonded house-elves to come to me through the Fidelius or not?"

Remus leaned in the doorway and said, "I think you have to use the one living in this house to fetch them. The one living here is a little senile though."

"He's not senile," Sirius said. "I hate him and he hates me. Don't even think that this one is anything like the helpful ones. He was my mother's and has been around for too long, but don't be fooled by his dotty actions. He's a very _Slytherin_ kind of elf."

"What's his name," Harry asked.

"Kreacher," Sirius said.

"Traitorous Master calls old Kreacher," the house-elf appeared with a mumble. He wasn't even wearing the usual toga style of pillowcase, but a tea towel in the form of a loincloth.

"Yes I called you," the dog animagus said. "I'd like to present to you, Harry Potter."

"Awful boy," Kreacher mumbled. "Killing the glorious Dark Lord as a babe, good Mistress doesn't like nasty killing boys. Kreacher wonders how he did it?"

"He's also the new owner of Grimmauld Place and everything in it," Sirius told the old elf.

The elf was shocked. It's ping pong rounded eyeballs stared at Harry, who stared right back.

"You're not clean, you need a shower or a full scrubbing bath," Harry said taking charge of the situation like he'd learned to do from Angel Donaldson and some of his other Canyon schoolmates. "You will go to Hogwarts and fetch me the house-elves named Winky and Dobby and you will return with them immediately, here and alive in this room. Now, go!"

Kreacher paused to think about it, but the magic inherent in him found no loophole to delay obedience. "Kreacher goes," the house-elf grumped. It popped away and then approximately ten seconds later it popped back with two house-elves in tow.

One had a long pencil like nose, large eyes, with several socks on its feet and tea cosies stacked upon his head for hats. The other with similarly, large eyes had a large tomato like nose. Her clothes were ruined and filthy. She had one butterbeer bottle in her hand about to take another drink when a young, small, calloused human hand took it from her.

"That's enough Winky," Harry said in a kind tone. "Your former master is gone and you were faithful to him. You don't need to continue drinking butterbeer to punish yourself because you've done nothing wrong."

The little female elf nodded with big tears forming in her eyes.

Dobby looked around the room and could feel the house. He sensed dark magic, but there was something else about the place too like it was curious about something. "Harry Potter sir be asking for Dobby and Winky," the elf asked. "Why?"

Harry rubbed the back of his head and said, "I need house-elves to help out with this house. I'm going to be cleaning it and I know that I can't do everything alone. It's better to have bonded elves to do some of the harder magical works for cleansing and maintaining a place."

"Bond to Dobby," Dobby asked. His eyes glittered with excitement, but he negotiated. "But still be paying with vacation and permission for clothes?"

The boy's fathers looked on with interest. They looked to each other and then back to the tableau of curiosity before them. They'd told him that he could do this if the elves he wanted, wanted it. They were not about to interfere with their son, not for something like this. But they didn't know how this would turn out either so they just kept watch.

"If that is what you wish," Harry said. "I'd like to offer a place for you and Winky under the Potter Banner, until you get too old and want to move onto your next great adventure and hopefully in a peaceful sleep or something, if you know what I mean?"

He may not have liked the meddling old man of his school too much because the man had kept trying to send him back to the Dursleys. However sometimes his human Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore made sense every once in a very long while. He liked that the thought of death in some way was only a step into the next great adventure.

Kreacher frowned at that and wondered what the nasty boy would do with him. He wasn't asked about a bond under another family banner and he wasn't sure that he wanted to be under another family banner. He'd been a Black Family elf his whole life.

Meanwhile Dobby and Winky quickly stripped. They discarded the clothes that they'd been given by their old masters binding them to their ' _Free_ ' status. The boy blinked, but didn't look embarrassed because they lacked clothing or anything of that nature because they were completely magical creatures to him and were mostly androgynous anyway. He'd read up on bonding with them in a book from his personal library in his tent and knew that this was the right way to go about such a thing.

"Kreacher," Harry said in a sharp, authoritative tone. It was a tone that the house-elf was familiar with. "I've not offered you a bond under the Potter name because you are a Black Family elf and too old to change Family allegiances without incurring severe magical damage." The old elf's eyes widened at that. The eyes of his two fathers had widened too since it was apparently something that they'd never heard about.

"However I am also linked by blood to the Black Family." The old elf nodded having sensed it when he looked at the boy with his magic. "Your bonds will be changed though. Fetch me good, clean, solid coloured sheets for the larger beds, but come back immediately or just snap them into the this room. Now!"

The old elf grumbled, but snapped his fingers. Lengths and lengths of clean and vivid, but plain coloured bed sheets appeared, neatly folded to form piles at the feet of the young master. He looked to the boy, thinking he'd get out of this, but he received another order instead, "Stay here and disrobe now."

Again the old elf couldn't find the loophole in the order. He muttered and grumbled as he did this and caused the other two house-elves to frown at his sour attitude.

"Dobby, Winky, Kreacher," Harry said, pulling out three house-elf pouches similar to the ones that had been given to the MML elves. "These are your pay pouches," he told them.

"Ah," he said holding up his hand and explained what was going on. "You need money to make your own uniforms. The pouches contain a catalogue of uniforms to choose from. I've marked the ones that I want you to consider wearing whenever you're _working_. If you're not working, you can wear whatever you choose. You're to bathe or clean yourselves at least once a day, if not twice or more, depending on how grimy you get from the work you'll be doing in this house. You're not to touch or work with any kind of food in the kitchen until you're fully scrubbed clean."

The young Gryffindor stepped first towards Dobby and hissed, (...Dobby! Ye anitquior, etatis famuli, conditionis non-dissolutus par vestimenti, thee fides, thee acceptus merces...). (…iii…) He held out his wand hand and let a pool of his magic glow in the well of it. His other hand held the house-elf pouch that he'd created for the elf. Elf's name appeared in dark stitching on the outside of it.

Dobby did the same, pooling his magic into his hand. He shivered in anticipation of the bond and then he placed his magic over that of the boy's. He accepted the bond and all magical conditions.

Harry then said, "Amicio habitus."

A flash of light and magical wind occurred as an old form of magical bonding sealed the two together as Master and Elf.

The men watching this from the side of the room observed that it was a spell that they'd never seen before, but they were glad that they'd been here to witness it. It wasn't often that they saw a bonding of house-elves that was out of the ordinary. They liked things out of the ordinary and silently approved of their son's choices in this matter.

Before them Dobby stood as tall as his short stature would allow. He was dressed in loose black pants held up by a leather belt with a pouch hanging on his left side with his name stitched into it. He was wearing thick, soled leather strapped sandals and an elbow length sleeved pale shirt with a black vest matching his pants. A small Potter Family crest was on the upper left of the vest over the elf's heart.

The pile of sheets had been diminished by a third.

The little elf immediately bounced around the room in his happiness. He didn't feel bad being bonded to the boy. He didn't feel the need to strip out of his clothes and he certainly didn't feel the need to beat himself up for being happy.

Winky looked at the newly bonded elf and had the hope that the boy remembered that she was a female elf. She didn't want to end up wearing pants.

"Winky," Harry said. "Do you..." He blinked as she held out her hand filled with her magic. He smiled gently at her, pooled his magic, and held out his wand hand to her. He hissed the same phrase, but changed ' _famuli_ ' to ' _famula_ ' in order to indicate gender. "Amicio habitus."

Winky was now dressing in the same type of sandals, with a single long shift like dress with a multi-pocketed apron over it. She had elbow length billowy sleeves and a long tunic like vest as a second layer that had the same sized Potter crest over her heart. Her pouch was belted securely at her waist too and her named was stitched on the front of it. She felt the same things that Dobby felt and knew that this young master of hers would never ask that she tell him anything about her previous family.

Only a third of the bed sheets had been left.

"Kreacher," Harry said and held out his hand to the aged elf. The elf bit his lip and then took in a deep breath. The old elf pooled only a tiny bit of his magic in the palm of his hand. It was enough to enforce the bond.

However what was said this time had added a compulsion to always speak the truth with the words ' _thee conpulsionis veredicti_.' He was also to obey Harry Potter, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin by the words, ' _obedio Harry Potter, obedio Sirius Black, obedio Remus Lupin, non obedio non alius sangius progeniei Black_ ,' and he was not to obey any other blood family member that had ever been named Black.

"Amicio habitus," Harry said. The old elf was dressed in a similar fashion as Dobby with the small stiched Black Family crest over his heart. However he was also crying as though in pain. The boy immediately understood that there were conflicting orders ingrained in the old elf. "Tell me what your last order was and who told it to you. Tell me now!"

"Destroy nasty necklace," Kreacher said. "Little master Reggie, told Kreacher." He held his head and cried out in pain. "Kreacher couldn't. Last order hurts Kreacher because Kreacher failed little master Reggie."

"Easy there," Harry said. "You didn't fail. You just can't do someone else's job. Easy," he said. He looked to his two fathers and said, "Remember the vessel prophecy, what if..."

"Kreacher," Sirius said. "Bring me that necklace, now." The old house elf popped away and then popped back with a large locket in his hand. "Put it on the ground," the elf obeyed.

"Kreacher your last order from your deceased master Reggie is terminated," Harry ordered. "You no longer need to obey Reggie. You obey the three of us as per our sealed magical contract."

Remus took a square piece of ritual cloth and wrapped up the locket with it. He then stored it in a pouch at his waist. "We'll take care of this," he said. "Harry you need to settle in and get these three working."

Harry nodded. He looked at Kreacher's stunned and relieved expression because he was no longer in any pain. "They will take care of it, your order from your old master will be fulfilled by others, know this in your heart," he said to the old elf. "We need to get rid of those things first before we can get rid of the Nasty Half-Blood Dark Lord for good. Now let me tell you about our plans for the next few days for the house."

The elves listened avidly to the boy's plans and the two new ones giggled while Kreacher felt that he still had to scowl at the ideas. He also looked somewhat intrigued and horrified when some of the ideas were told to him, but the boy was his primary Master now even if he had to obey the two men too.

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

 **TBC…**

(...i...) See attached link for information on Taboo - www dot hp-lexicon dot org/magic/spells/spells_t dot html (change the word dot and remove spaces) - I like this concept.

(...ii...) From time to time something will be referenced to the book, but I will not indicate what they are, as I believe only a few things will be added for emphasis.

(...iii...) Latin with help from  ablemedia dot com/ ctcweb /showcase /wordsonline dot html (remove the space and change the word dot to find site)

Basically what Harry said in Parseltongue.

(...You ancient (m) lifetime servant, contract not dissolvable through clothes, you loyal, you accept pay...), followed by - dress (amicio), uniform (habitus)


	4. Chapter 4

**CH 4**

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

Harry eventually forgave his so-called friends a few days later. They kind of forgave him when Winky and Dobby appeared to help their efforts to clean the house. It was clear from their uniforms that they now had a permanent bond to the House of Potter.

Ron didn't really care about that. He only wished that he'd thought of it first, but he never said that out loud. He knew better than that, especially around the muggle-born girl member of faltering Golden Trio.

Hermione...well she wasn't happy about it.

She had been really pissed off when she found out that he'd bound the elves to him, but he told her that whatever was required for a house-elf to live a long and healthy life that he'd do it, even if it meant bonding with them magically. She was still upset about it, but couldn't do much more since it really was too late to prevent him from doing it. Plus the Boy-Who-Lived had given the elves permission to lecture the girl every time she brought up how wrong it was to bind a living creature that way. She had been getting recent headaches because of their high-pitched voices.

The children including Fred and George, although at seventeen they were supposed to be considered adults, but weren't according to their mother, were all mainly united against Mrs. Weasley when she tried to herd them into cleaning the house her way. Her way was to just get rid of everything Dark, forgetting that some things like old houses that have been Dark for so long now required a balance of Light and Dark objects inside it to still function magically.

The Boy-Who-Lived was having none of it especially about the disposal of creatures good for potions and alchemical ingredients. "No Mrs. Weasley," he said. "The house belongs to me and therefore all creatures in it do too. The doxies may have infested the curtains, but I see no reason not to keep these excellent potion ingredients when they're available and free."

"Harry these are Dark Creatures," Mrs. Weasley said. "It's illegal to obtain doxies parts or eggs because they're on a restricted ingredient acquisition list."

"They're expensive too if you choose to buy them even with all proper authority available to you. Only Potions Masters and Mistresses or certified Potions Brewers and Apothecaries can buy them. So as struggling students if our standard supply kit runs out and we can find or harvest them from their natural habitat like personal house curtains or old school rooms then they're ours to do with as we please. Harvesting these, here, do not fall under any restrictive law," Harry said with a pointed looked to the twins. He picked up the bucket full of the comatose, frozen creatures including the clear cloth sack that contained their eggs in various stages of growth.

"Kreacher," he called out. "Put these away properly, I don't want them molding, dying or anything of that nature. They are to remain in stasis until I can process them properly."

The house-elf popped into the room and then out of it again with the bucket and sack. The old elf didn't have to stay around the others in the house, that's what his new young master had said when he laid out the rules that the older elf had to follow. He knew just where to put them too. He'd been told to store any captured household pests in the potions cabinet that his young master had unearthed from behind a pile of boxes in the attic. The cabinet was made with wizard space, a large two-door affair with hidden cubbies, nooks, shelves and other such places for specialized potion ingredients or tools.

"Really Harry," Mrs. Weasley said, but she watched the stubborn boy cross his arms and tilt his head waiting for her to challenge him in his own home. She sighed as they'd already had the argument. "Very well then," after which she was just about to show them how to clean the drapes, but the young man stopped her.

"Just take them all down for now," Harry said. "We need the light in this room anyway. Beside they're old and outdated."

"What," Mrs. Weasley said. "Why? It's bad for the books and the wallpaper to be exposed to the sun."

"We're going to be getting rid of the wall paper. I'm either going to paint the room or put up new paper," he told her. "We'll just pack away most of the stuff as we clean them and I'll sort them out later. Fred, George, get the boxes." The twins popped out and the came back as the others, started piling things by similarity types. Spoons with utensils, plates with tea-cozies, etc...

The children cleaned the house and were in rooms away from the Order business. That's all Mrs. Weasley cared about at the moment. They worked on the first parlour that Harry had arrived in and then went on from there. The elves helped move all paintings to the entrance hall for now.

The large family parlour with the tapestry of the Black Family Tree was the only thing left in the room. All curtains had been removed and the sunshine was changing the overall gloomy feel of the place. As each room was cleared the feel of the house changed just that little bit more.

Although Harry still felt like they were fighting the house, he knew that this was one battle he was going to win. Harry and the twins laughed when it came time to clear out the large party dining room since it had been infested with spiders of all things. They weren't acromantulas, but they were quite large. They were about the size of dinner plates and Ron had run out of there so quickly they'd have thought the place was on fire.

Harry collected a bunch of them and allowed the twins to collect the rest. He'd already promised to supply the MML research facility and figured that his house could help with some of that, like most of the doxy ingredients. He had to make it look like he was taking those for himself rather than for the twins' joke business. He even allowed them to take the old desk from the master study that was currently locked and had something thumping around the inside of it. Whatever it was, was surely bound to provide them all with something useful, yeah?

Once that large dining room was clean, he allowed the members of the Order to move their meetings there and told them to confine their movements from the back door to this room. "You will be watched," he'd told them. "No more kitchen access. If you need tea call for Kreacher and he will provide you with something to slake your thirst."

He then pointed to four portraits of some of the older Black Family members that had been confined to other rooms because they were like Sirius in the use of their magics, more Grey than Dark. The family had hidden them because they were ashamed of their ' _goodness_ ' or their too beneficial magic.

The Order members grumbled, but there really was nothing that they could do about it. He did turn an old and very large, single door wardrobe into a water closet. It was kind of like the construction port-a-potties and he parked that piece of furniture in a private alcove near the back entrance of the house for the members of the Order to use. He refused to supply them with food, but tea or water would be plentiful if they called upon the Black Family elf. His other elves were too busy to do any catering or so the humans had been told.

The front entrance was filled with portraits, even some that hadn't seen any others for the longest time. Walburga Black's own parents were there and Harry had known what he was doing putting all the portraits in one place. Some that had been put under sleep charms awoke to get the latest news from the other portraits. Those older ones soon were berating the younger ones for their lousy decisions and the downfall of their Family ways.

"I don't have to stay here and listen to this," Walburga voiced to the others. Unfortunately this was the day that Harry had chosen to come and address them all.

"Actually you do," Harry said. "You chose your position and having been permanently stuck to the wall, it means that you're confined to this place because all other portraits are here." He had taken the ones from the back entrance and brought them here for the spell he was about to perform.

"What," she said. She looked at the layers upon layers of frames leaning against one another in the hallway floor.

"You really should have thought of making a gallery hall for all the portraits, but since you put the ones away that you were ashamed of and stuck yourself here it looks like this will have to become the new Portrait Gallery Hall," he said.

"But we won't all fit," she sneered. "There nothing you can do about that."

"Of course there is," Harry said. "Shrinking charms do exist you know. Now I may not be able to remove you from the wall, but I certainly can reduce your size which will have the effect of reducing your irritating voice to nothing more than helium filled, mouse-like squeaks." He threw his fist at her which had the effect of casting a shrinking spell using the old forms of magic.

That motion had let several of the portraits know that he was powerful enough to do the _old form_ spells without a wand. Her large portrait which had been a floor to ceiling affair shrank and the yells she produced were reduced in volume to high-pitched, distorted words, very much like the helium, squeaky effect that he had told them about.

"There," he told them. "That'll take care of her for a while and I'll be able to scrub the walls and give them a fresh coat of paint once that awful dingy wallpaper is removed. We'll take care of that in a few days." He paused to pick up the ones that were going to be his security portraits and then said, "Oops, before I forget..."

(...Thee fides Harry Potter, thee conpulsionis veredicti, Thee fides Sirius Black, Thee fides Remus Lupin, Thee non obedio non alius sangius progeniei Black...) He hissed, making all the portraits in the hall loyal to him and his two fathers, forcing them to always speak the truth to them and to never obey any other person of Black Family blood. His hissing startled them, but the spells hit them all which included binding any duplicate portraits that may have existed elsewhere.

(...Nunti domi securitatis ut Harry Potter, ut Sirius Black, ut Remus Lupin, ut domus famuli...) He hissed the additional conditions of mandatory notification when the house security was breached. They were to report to any of the named humans or the bonded house-elves.

"Holy Merlin," Walburga's great, great, great-grandfather swore and then he glared at the shrunken portrait of the woman. "What the hell did you do to him girl?" He yelled at her after he told the portraits what the boy had hissed because he knew Parseltongue too.

"Now we're confined to be loyal to him, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin," Phineas Nigellus Black said. "We can't obey anything coming from the mouth of any other Black which means that nothing can be said to Naricissa, Bellatrix, Andromeda or any of their future offspring. You obnoxious fool," he hissed at the woman. "My secondary portrait can't even do anything or warn anyone if that little brat is in danger because it would be a betrayal to him and will destroy all existing activated Black portraits."

The woman had a lot of old family members glaring at her and she couldn't even disappear behind her curtains. Since the new master of the house known to her as the little ' _half-blood traitor_ ' had removed them.

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

It took younger children about four days without magic to clear out the main rooms on the first floor. The twins and Harry helped with their magic to shrink items and pack them away securely.

Meanwhile Sirius had finally been called to the D.M.L.E. and the Ministry of Magic for his trial. His lawyer was a good one. The woman had been happy to see that the Ministry was finally getting their act together and that the man would finally be able to have justice.

Sirius had to reside in a holding cell for the duration of the trial, but so far he'd been there only the one night when they had finally subpoenaed Harry for his testimony. The Minister of Magic had been hoping to avoid having the Boy-Who-Lived give his statement because he unfortunately had been a key witness to the return of the Dark Lord.

Harry's subpoena came with Mr. Weasley on August fifteenth. He told the Order that he'd bring the boy with him to work. The Boy-Who-Lived was scheduled to appear in the courts at nine in the morning.

Harry was up much earlier that morning and came down fully dressed. He was in the kitchen making his breakfast as Mr. Weasley came in. "Tea sir," he asked the man who nodded for a cup. "Have some food. Do you want a lunch to go or do you buy your lunch when you're at work sir?"

"Molly usually has a lunch prepared for me," Arthur said. "It should already be in the cooling box." The boy looked in the cooling unit and found a small brown box. He nodded and then sat down with the man. They shared the papers that the boy subscribed to and soon were on their way before many of the others in the house woke up.

Harry was lead to a disused red muggle phone booth that had been slightly wizard spaced in its time because they weren't crowded standing in it together. It wasn't noticed by the muggles on the street either which he'd appreciated. He watched as the man dialed the numbers; six, two, four, four, two, (M-A-G-I-C) without picking up the phone receiver.

A witch answered as though the phone had a speaker feature, "Welcome to the United Kingdom's Ministry of Magic's Headquarters! Please state your name and purpose of your visit."

"Witness for a trial," Mr. Weasley said. A single badge popped out for Harry since the man worked for the Ministry of Magic. The badge said, ' _Witness for Trial_ ,' without specifying whose trial or requiring their name. The system seem automated to the young Gryffindor. "Here, keep this pinned to your robes."

(...Adfixi...) Harry hissed. That way the sticking effect would remain since it would take a normal witch or wizard three tries before removing it from his robes. He then thought about some of the permanent portraits and wondered if the sticking charm had been cast in another language which could be why some couldn't be removed so quickly.

' _I'll have to try removing those portraits with Parseltongue,_ ' he thought.

They had passed through the wand identification office with a few stares.

The boy had a small chuckle at the thought of owls having been used as messengers as Arthur explained the flying bits of origami memo paper. Before the Ministry chose to use origami animals and paper airplanes they had used real birds. The newer memos produced no droppings. Poop was still a funny concept to the boy and he could just picture official documents covered in the stuff before someone got tired of seeing and banishing it.

They weren't in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts office for too long when Mr. Weasley's assistant came running with a note that stated that the time that Harry was to appear in the courts had been changed for eight am. They took the note, where Harry date and time stamped it with the word ' _Received_ ' above it.

It legalized the receipt of the item and its delivery time couldn't be disputed. The issuance of it was suspect because the court trial would have continued on without him if he hadn't chosen to arrive early with Mr. Weasley.

They hurried as best they could and made it just in time. "Mr. Harry Potter is supposed to be your witness," Minister Fudge said. "Yet he has not shown up."

"Apologies to the magical court," Harry said as he walked into the room. "I've only just received the notification for the change in times."

"You will not lie Mr. Potter," Fudge said with a slam of his gavel on the plaque of wood made to receive the large court mallet.

Harry felt the distinct shift in the atmosphere like that of magic in use and wondered just what was about to happen to him now. "I have the notification here," he said. He held it up and gave it to Sirius' lawyer. "I've also magically stamped the receipt time and day of it, so that the court will know exactly when I've received it. I've done so with both notices."

"Good thinking. In doing so you locked in the time of issuance too," the woman named Juris Levi said (...i...). She was Sirius' lawyer and had been an older prefect of his when he'd only been an ickle, firstie student at Hogwarts. "This was issued at seven thirty am today Minister. He would never have received it in time to attend court."

"Silence," Minister Fudge said. "Since he's here now he can give his testimony." He pointed the gavel to the witness box.

Harry just nodded to Mr. Weasley who was invited to sit down nearby. The young man stepped into the box and waited for the questions. He was told to explain how he knew that Sirius Black was innocent of the charge against him.

"You will not lie Mr. Potter," the Minister said with a bang of his gavel again. The boy's eyes furrowed. He frowned as he felt the magic hit him once more.

' _A knocking sound that's preceded by a command,_ ' Rowena had said to him during her sessions in old magical abilities. ' _It's an old form of laying a magical Geas on a person. The goblins and dwarves still use those methods to sentence someone by using them courtroom items to enforce the command. Be very wary of such devices since many had been gifted to human families for services rendered._ '

' _That bloody wanker_ ,' he thought about the Minister of Magic. ' _He's not allowed to use goblin artifacts in a court of human law. Thank goodness Salazar told me how I can limit the command with a Parseltongue clause._ ' However he only nodded his head and told his story about how Sirius in his animagus form had taken his friend and dragged him as he'd been holding his pet rat.

"Remus," Harry said. "Professor Remus J. Lupin had used a spell to reveal Peter Pettigrew in his human form from the rat I used to know as a student's pet named Scabbers. I warned the D.M.L.E. about that when they took him into their custody for interrogation after the third task of the Triwizard Tournament in June."

"Transcripts of that interrogation are available," Amelia Bones confirmed when asked about them. She'd been trying all morning to get them handed out and didn't waste anytime in doing so now. "We thought that we had had them filed appropriately, but they'd been lost for a while there. They will now be appended to the transcripts of this trial since the situations are linked." She had a pile of papers in front of her and distributed them to the lawyers. "I'm sorry for the delay in submitting them. They had been erroneously filed by an incompetent junior clerk who's since been reprimanded harshly."

"Ten minute recess to review the new transcripts," the Minister said. He had to since it was courtroom protocol to allow the lawyers a chance to review any new information. The transcripts were technically new information to say the least.

Half an hour later the trial neared its conclusion as Harry continued his testimony in support of the information that Peter Pettigrew was a Death Eater. He told how the rat man was responsible for the ritual that brought the Dark Lord back to life.

"You will not lie Mr. Potter," the Minister said in an angry tone which was more near to shouting. He slammed the gavel and a harder knock to the wooden plaque.

"I will not lie," Harry repeated. His tone of voice sounded like he'd been cursed to parrot the words as if through the Imperious Curse. However he quickly hissed an out clause that ensured that the curse would only be temporary, (...Only for this scholastic year...), with a very loud stomp of his right foot to negate further command spells from the enchanted gavel.

"Accio gavel and plaque," he had his wand out and called the Minister's tools away from the man. "Apologies for the disturbance," he said to the court members quickly as he sent the items to the Head of the D.M.L.E. and asked, "Could you please check for magic within these devices?"

"What is the meaning of this," Cornelius Fudge shouted. "There is no magic in those."

"Actually the boy is right Cornelius," Madam Bones said in a dark tone. "Look," the objects were glowing. "Goblin magic if I'm not mistaken." She looked to the blustering man and said, "Goblin gifts to the Ministry of Magic are not to be used in a human court of law Cornelius. Do you know what you've just done?"

"I pulled those from storage Amelia," the man sputtered. "They were not supposed to have magic in them."

"You've condemned the Boy-Who-Lived to only tell the truth from now on," the woman said. "He can't lie for the rest of his life."

"Actually madam," Harry said. "I felt the magic and remembered what my personal tutors told me about this kind of ancient magic. I'm able to set a limit in order to negate the condition." He paused and then clarified, "That is, if I catch it time. I did so with Parseltongue. It's limited for this one scholastic year. At the very least this year no teacher can accuse me of lying because I truly can't." He shrugged as he received a few chuckles for that statement. He sat down at his place in the witness box.

A court courier had arrived with another gavel and plaque set. The intern waited for an Auror to scan it before handing it to the Minister of Magic. The trial didn't take much more time as the Minister now knew that the Boy-Who-Lived couldn't lie. Sirius' lawyer had made him repeat what he had said about Peter Pettigrew and the return of the Dark Lord.

"So the Dark Lord really has returned," one of the other Department Heads comment.

"He has," Harry said. "He named a few of his Death Eaters too and he revealed them by removing their masks while I was tied to the gravestone during the ritual. Obviously Peter Pettigrew was there since the rat did the actual ritual work before the Dark Lord's followers were summoned to witness the fact that the Dark Lord has returned."

Cornelius Fudge couldn't do much more and concluded the trial with the following statement. His ability to bury his head in the sand meant that he had prevented anyone in the room from asking for the names of the Dark Lord's followers. Instead he concluded the trial with the following:

"The Ministry of Magic issues a full pardon to Sirius Orion Black and with it all Black Family assets are now released to his keeping including access of his Family's vaults as per the Magical Charter of Witchcraft and Wizardry Rights. His Lordship title is reinstated with full voting power in the Wizengamot. However he's to submit the registration of his animagus form within the next thirty days to the appropriate department or be fined. Any other broken laws including his escape from Azkaban is pardoned as he'd not have been there if he'd been given a fair trial in the first place. Therefore he broke no law from any time after his incarceration or during his escape."

A final slam of the gavel and the court was now out of session. Many witches and wizards tried to get a look at the famous Harry Potter, but he was having none of it. He ran down to his dad and wrapped himself in the man's arms, hiding his face and scar.

Madam Bones sent an airplane note to Harry and Sirius to meet with her in an hour.

She smiled as she watched the two embrace and went to her office to prepare for their arrival. She had the paperwork ready for the ex-con and the answer to the boy's request for Ministry Sanction to independently study the old or primitive magic, as he'd called it. It was clear that he knew about them and understood them in a way that hadn't been seen since several centuries back especially since he had obviously been able to set limitations to a seemingly erroneous laid magical Geas.

"Arthur can we wait in your office," Sirius asked. Mr. Weasley nodded as they waited for the courtroom to clear. Witches and wizards were encouraged to leave by Aurors and well placed stinging zaps from Harry's protective jewelry.

An hour later Sirius had his pardon and a written permission to obtain a new wand. He'd signed all the paperwork registering his animagus form too so no one could fine him because it was delayed.

"I swore that I'd filed everything properly," the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Amelia Bones explained to them with a sigh. "I still don't know how the transcripts of the investigation for Peter Pettigrew had been filed under pest control." The Boy-Who-Lived had giggled at that. "All right maybe I can, but still..."

"Madam Bones," Sirius said. "It's quite all right. It's finished and Harry can live with me now."

"Actually you'll have to report to St. Mungo's to set up a series of appointments with a Mind Healer," the woman said.

"I'll go to a private Mind Healer," Sirius said. "I already have a family one and they are trust worthy."

"Of course," Madam Bones said and then handed a scroll of parchment to Harry. "I had hoped to set up an appointment for you before your next school year, but I'm taking advantage of the fact that you're here right now." He read the parchment giving him permission to study independently while at school and to gather in a group of people with the same magical inclination, unfortunately he still had to attend his normal D.A.D.A class. The request had been formally signed off by the Head of the Wizarding Examination Authorities and the Department of Magical Law Enforcement since they needed to know about the magic that was being practiced to ensure that they were not in any way illegal in accordance to the existing law.

The scroll was sufficiently vague though. It had already been signed by the Minister of Magic and was as clear as mud. About the only thing clear was the timeline indicated as, " _For the entire period of Harry James Potter's attendance at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, this document will supersede all present and future educational decrees set forth in the Hogwarts Charter of Educational Rights and under the auspices of the Wizarding Examination Authority (WEA) for the purpose of setting up and maintaining alternate magical studies..._ " followed by a lot of blather about independent magic and other things including the right to select like minded students who upon signing a binding contract were to be just as protected from any present or future educational decrees. It was as stated before, clear as mud, but completely and rigidly legal too.

There were additional lines and spaces to indicate that this document was a magical contract that any of the students he chose to teach the old ways. They must sign it in order to be protected along with submitting a copy to the D.M.L.E and the WEA.

"I've been hearing a few rumours around these halls," she said and then winked at him. "This will protect you against the worst of it. Now about the Geas…you can sue the Minister of Magic for use of a goblin artifact..."

"No ma'am," Harry said with a shake of his head. "I've been reading about things like this. If they're discovered to have been misused, even accidentally the devices must be returned to the Goblin Nation. I can deliver the items to them if you like. We're headed in that direction today and they might want to verify that they had been used incorrectly by magically examining me along with them."

"A copy of today's transcripts from the trial would help," Sirius said. "We're planning to go to Diagon Alley for some of Harry's school supplies."

"Do you think that's wise considering that Harry might become a target," Amelia asked.

"Might," Harry snorted. "I already am one, but I have a potion here that will help hide the fact that I'm out there besides I have to visit Ollivander too."

"May I ask why you need to visit the wandmaker and what potion are you talking about," the woman asked.

"It was the only article that Rita Skeeter had gotten right about me last year," Harry said with a slight shrug. "During the Triwizard Tournament's ' _weighing of the wands_ ' Mr. Ollivander said that I had to visit him before my next year of school. The potion is the Masking Vapours Potion with the ten minute limit."

"Ah," she said. "I'm glad it works for you. You're both free to go now." She handed him the package with the goblin gavel and plaque with an official letter from her department explaining the return of the items which included a copy of the day's trial transcripts, plus all appended documents in support of the finished trial.

Harry tucked those in a pouch. Then he opened another pouch at his waist and handed a vial to his father while taking one himself. They downed the potion and barely changed their features. The boy changed his glasses for a darker pair of rectangular lens, changed his eye colour and hair length. The woman had gasped at the disappearance of the boy's scar. The young Gryffindor's father then charmed their robes to be changed in form and colour, before they hid their other papers in one of the boy's numerous pouches at his belt.

"Thank you Madam Bones," Harry said, as he left her office.

Sirius nodded and said, "Thank you Amelia."

The woman shook her head and smiled. She was glad to have helped them both out since it was obvious to her that the man would be taking over the custody of the Boy-Who-Lived as per the man's right as the boy's magical godparent.

So far no one had become aware of the magical adoption.

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

 **TBC…**

(...i...) Juris is Latin for Justice - hence name of Sirius' lawyer

Latin with help from  ablemedia dot com/ ctcweb /showcase /wordsonline dot html (remove the space and change the word dot to find site)


	5. Chapter 5

**CH 5**

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

Remus had already attended a couple of Wizengamot sessions as the Regent for the Potter Estates since the end of Harry's fourth year. After his trial Sirius attended them from time to time too. This was to ensure that his presence would now be felt as a proper voting member in the Wizarding World. Some ideas could not get passed the two of them because they were sharp.

Although sometimes the Wizengamot votes had caught Remus voting opposite his intention usually on days after a full moon when his physical condition pained him, but never when Sirius was sitting next to him to make sure that the man did the right thing. The two men were still trying to prevent certain laws and decrees from passing and their arguments for them were sound. However they were sneaky in the way they had presented their ideas or how their arguments were conducted which allowed them to gain votes to their cause.

They always stated that they did it all for their magical society and that's how they presented everything, ' _for the good of everyone magical_ ,' and ' _for the sake of all magical children._ '

Albus Dumbledore had been removed from any position of influence in the Wizengamot and in the International Confederation of Wizards. His movements had been limited by the Ministry of Magic due to several innuendo articles of the press. The increased fear of the Dark Lord's return were part of the Ministry's reasons too.

The two men and a few others from the Order of the Phoenix were the only ones available to report the goings on at the Ministry. Even then some things were slipped through without the full backing of the Wizengamot because some decisions were only Policy Standards set up by the Minister of Magic.

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

August twentieth was the day that Harry decided to paint the empty and cleaned up rooms of the main floor. He had purchased cans of paint from an American magical shopping alley with the appropriate magical spraying nozzles and connector ends made for precision and speed of application. He'd even bought large magical rolls of blue tape that protected windows and trim from getting splashed with paint, but wouldn't ruin the finish or paint under it when magically peeled away after all the painting was done.

He specifically purchased several cans with the purpose of changing things in the house, but he'd also gone to a wallpaper and wood staining store in Diagon Alley in order to get some sample swatches of magical wallpaper or wooden samples to test in the guest rooms and other rooms on the family floor. He could place a swatch patch on a wall or a wooden tile on the floor and the magic would project an image of the completed room without putting up the wallpaper or laying down a whole new floor. So there was no need for the buyer to beware in this case since all the buyer had to do was select the one he wanted and order the amount he needed. The sample swatch even calculated the amount needed for any given room based on the projected magic.

"What's all this then," Ron asked. He noted the cans of paint and the small bags which contained two sizes of buttons in each bag.

"First we put the tape on like this," Harry said pulling out his wand and demonstrated how to put it around the window, finished ceilings and doors. "It will repel the paint from these edges, after that I have a lot of white and pale colours for the trim work. We'll paint those and we need to use the tape to protect the windows and ceilings."

As he put the tape on the window side and a pale film of colour covered the entire window protecting it from paint splatter. The same happened with the ceiling since he didn't want paint on the new and freshly painted white ceilings which he had the house-elves do in every room during the times that the rooms were unoccupied.

He then placed his chosen colours with smaller cans for trim work in different rooms. "Now watch," he said. He used a spell that shook the cans to ensure that the colours were mixed properly. He then opened a package of two buttons, placed a medium sized round button on the top of the paint can, then he placed the second, much smaller one over the tip of his wand. He said, "Adfixi," and then, "Depingo." (...i...)

The paint came from the end of his wand in a small spray of colour. He guided his wand along the edge of the trim for one of the windows in the main parlour. It was magical paint that could darken or lighten in the same range of the colour to suit the owner of the house. It really was wonderful stuff.

The kids watched him finish the trim quickly, without making that much of a mess or missing any spots. It didn't matter that some of the paint covered the walls because the walls were going to be painted with two coats of a darker shade of paint to cover it up. The trim would be protected by the tape hence the painting of it first.

"Desisto," Harry said which stopped the spray of colour. "See guys, it's easy. Mrs. Weasley, can Ron and Ginny have their wands back to paint the rooms?"

"Interesting method," the woman said. "Of course they can, but only to paint the walls. If I catch either of you doing any other spells, you'll be grounded until the start of school. Each of you should take a room. How long will it take for the paint to dry?"

"It was guaranteed to be dry in about an hour's time," Harry said. "I say we can do all of the trim now and then pause for a short break or have lunch. After which we can cover the painted trim which should be dry by then with the blue tape and then we can attack the walls with the larger paint cans."

"Good thinking," Mrs. Weasley said. "I'll have some sandwiches ready for all of you by then."

"Fred," Harry said. "George is there still an Order meeting in the large dining room?"

"Nah," Fred said. "They left."

"All right, could you two do that room since it's one of the largest," Harry said. "Here are the cans, blue tape and the buttons for it. Remember to use the tape or I'll sick Winky on you for destroying all the hard work she's done on that ceiling."

"We wouldn't do that," Fred said taking the two smaller cans for trim work.

"Never," George shuddered. "Never mess with a house-elf's cleaned space." He took the three larger cans for the walls and followed his sibling.

"I'll finish this room," Harry said. "You guys pick a room and do it. I'll get Sirius to do the entrance hall." He grinned mischievously. "I think he'll like his mother's reaction, if he can make out what she'll be saying."

"Really Harry," Hermione said with an amused huff and left predictably for the old library room.

Ginny chose to paint the old ball and music room while Ron did another, smaller parlour wanting to finish up faster than the others so he can goof off to read the latest Quidditch Magazine.

Fred and George came to see Harry after they'd started the trim work. They had to ask. "Harry old boy..."

"I think there something wrong with the colour," George continued.

"Are you sure..." Fred said.

"That you gave us the right cans," they finished together.

"Disisto," Harry asked. "What colour is it?"

"Don't you know?" Fred asked.

"You gave us the paint," George commented.

"I know what it's supposed to be," Harry said. "But you're saying that there's something's wrong with it." He paused and then went to see what they were talking about. (...ii...) He looked at the pale lavender trim and nodded. "It's the right colour. I know that orange is known as a colour to stimulate hunger, but since this is the meeting room for the Order, I figured that that shade of purple was the better choice in order to stimulate ideas and help combat fears. I'm saving the light pumpkin shade for the smaller, family dining room." He left them to finish off his own room which he'd chosen to be a light shade of yellow.

"It's the right colour, he says," Fred said with a grin. "I like it!"

George grinned back and said, "Colour to combat fear and stimulate ideas, why not?"

"Indeed! Think that's why Dumbledore wears those outrageous coloured robes," Fred returned, still smiling at the thought that the young man had put into selecting his paint colours for the rooms of this house.

His brother barely paused to think about it. He nodded and said. "Let's do this."

The children finished up their activities and were eating their lunch when Professor McGonagall arrived to deliver their school letters that same day. "Here you go," she said. "Now that you're here if you'll read them through and give me your class preferences, I can set up your schedules today."

Hermione shrieked in happiness to find that she'd received a Prefect badge. It was the Gryffindor House crest with a large P superposed over it. Across from her Ron stared in his lumpy envelope.

Harry looked to his own and noticed a distinct lack of lump and then shrugged. He was glad that he didn't get the Prefect pin. He didn't have time for it and was relieved that he wouldn't have to tell his Head of House that he didn't want the job anyway.

"Professor," Harry said. "Can I have a room assigned to me for my free periods and for few other times in the evening and weekends for an independent study?"

"What do you mean," she asked.

"Oh wait," Harry said and left the room to get a copy of the Writ he received from the D.M.L.E. "Here," he said and held out a rolled up piece of parchment. "It's a copy for my school files."

Professor McGonagall smiled at the contents. "When were you planning to do any of this," she asked. "Who were you planning to...um...study with?"

"I don't know who yet," Harry said. "Once it's signed by those I've chosen, I'll be sure to give you an updated list of people who'll be in the room with me. I don't know how to test for what I'm planning to study, but I know of a few people to ask." He munched away on a sandwich.

"It should be mostly sorted by the end of September and I figure by then I'd know who will be part of the extra learning. I've a few plans and things that need to be set up first. The room also needs to be either on the ground floor or in the dungeon area which are more like neutral territories rather than the upper corridors where the core classes take place. It also has to big enough to be separated by privacy screens or some such thing for the different aspects of what I'm planning to study."

"I see," the Professor said. "Will a Professor be supervising this ' _specialized study_ '?"

"No," Harry said. "The Professors will have enough on their plate already with regular classes. Besides I'm not going to start anything big and it's not the normal stuff that any of you teach anyway."

"I'm not sure I like this," Professor McGonagall said re-reading the Ministry Writ.

"Like it or not I'm still going to be doing it with or without your permission," Harry replied with a shrug. "I figure the more students I test the more they can have the time to learn their strengths which some students won't know or find out what they are under the current curriculum. Not everyone will be able to study this form of magic either and besides, it will only be during my free time. I'm thinking possibly during my weekends and two hours after dinner on some days, what's there not to like? It's just extra learning and it will hopefully keep me out of trouble."

"Don't you think that you're taking on too much," the woman asked.

Harry looked at the Prefect badges that his ' _best friends_ ' had received and shrugged a bit sadly, "I'm going to have the free time on my hands anyway."

The Professor fell for his Slytherin tactic of garnering a bit of pity because he hadn't been selected to be a leader in the school. She reluctantly agreed and assigned him one of the old dueling halls in the dungeons, telling him where it was located. "You'll have to clean it and ward it yourself, only during your free time though. You can ask Professor Flitwick to help you with any charms you may have difficulty with." She suggested. "There are already protections in it and those are best against stray spells or whatever else you choose to study. It's also close to Professor Snape's office, so if you need someone in an emergency situation I fully expect you to go to him, understood?"

"Yes ma'am," Harry answered with a nod. He looked over the checklist for classes and selected much of the same ones as the previous year, but he decided to drop Arithmancy. It had been much too easy the previous year and he figured that he could sign up to take the O.W.L.s for it anyway, but had chosen to study that subject independently with his private tutors. Dropping it would give him another time slot for the extra study that he was planning to do and it would allow him more time for this US Canyon studies too.

Hermione tried to talk him into taking it, but he just shook his head and said, "I can follow the text book quite easily. I'm not going to sit in class while the Professor repeats much of the book's contents. This is one class where the book contains questions and the answers at the back of it which means that I can study at my own pace. I can always find more advanced work books on the subject too."

"Fine then," she said in a huff. "Don't expect my help when you come to a knotty equation!"

The rest of the kids handed her their requests and then she handed them their books lists for their selected courses, plus their schedules. "Here Mr. Potter," she said. "It's a map to the location of the room I'm going to be assigning you."

"Thanks Professor," Harry said. He hissed a tagging spell at it so that he could easily find it, should he lose it or should it be taken from him for whatever reason. He added a feature that turned it into a muggle labyrinth and three dimensional paper puzzle. He put it way before anyone else could look at it, but he knew from the curious looks he received that he'd be questioned or condemned for his hissing later.

"Well that's done my lions, see you in school," the Transfiguration Professor said after she handed them their class schedules to better prepare them for their next year of school. She left them to their lunch and chores.

"What was she talking about," Hermione asked. "What specialized study?"

"Well you know that the Dark Idiot has returned," Harry explained. "I'm just making sure that I can study up on defence and other things because you know that wanker is not at all happy that I had escaped him." He gave them all a squinch-faced grimace which they echoed. "Just think about it. Our past DADA Professors were not all that up to speed and this is our OWLs year. I'm just making sure that I can pass it, _without_ having to rely on whomever the new Professor happens to be." He didn't add that he didn't trust the Headmaster to actually hire someone competent for the position either.

"It's true," Ron said. "If I was the Dark Lord, I'd want time to gather forces and troops before announcing my return. That would've meant no one left alive as a witness, but since you're here and you've told everyone that he's back, people are more prepared... well they should be more prepared to defend themselves, their families and their homes."

"True enough," Ginny said. "Or else the Dark Lord could wait for people to be lulled into a false sense of security. The papers are certainly helping him in that direction since they've been printing crap about you all summer." That statement proved she had a mind to rival those of her brothers. "However with The Underground Message printing up articles and essays from anyone submitting them, it's interesting how many more people are viewing the Prophet as an unreliable source of information rather than something that contains true facts."

"The Muggle World is filled with those kinds of papers too," Hermione stated. "They still do good business because let's face it, humans love to gossip about anything and whether it's something that happens to be true or not."

Harry nodded as Mrs. Weasley came into the kitchen to shoo them all back to painting the rooms.

Later that night Sirius was howling with laughter as he painted the main entrance and the new portrait gallery hallway in a light bubblegum pink colour!

It was a lovely shade that should in theory promote emotional tranquility and love. It should theoretically help the portraits to curb their more vicious tongues or so that's what Harry had told his dad in one of his letters when he'd been suggesting paint colours for certain areas of the town house.

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

They had decided to visit Diagon Alley for their school supplies early morning of August the twenty-seventh since they knew that most school shoppers were going to go last minute. Mrs. Weasley had tried to keep Harry behind, but he was not listening to her concerns.

"Mrs. Weasley please stop coddling me," Harry said in a frustrated tone. "The Dark Lord may be back, but he has yet to attack any place of magical value especially one as occupied as Diagon Alley. His forces aren't going to be ready to do it either. The number of Death Eaters that he had called to his side were no more than ten or fifteen and from the names mentioned, I believe they may have been the more influential of his followers." He watched as she was about to huff about him needing protection. "It's not like I'm going to be unprotected and I am going in disguise of course."

"Disguise," she asked. "What disguise?"

"Yes disguise," Harry said. He pulled out a small potion vial and drank it down. They all watched as he lost his scar, his hair lengthened a bit and his eye colour changed. He switched his glasses for an extremely nerdy pair of old horn-rimmed types. "See," he said. "Do I really look like the Boy-Who-Lived now? I need to go there to buy some clothes personally. I'm going there to look and see if the Alley has a good tanner that can supply me with some cured leather goods too. It's not something that I can shop for without seeing what I'm buying and I certainly cannot ask someone to pick those things out for me."

They watched him strap on a sheathed sword and hide a long dagger in his boot.

"Since when do you travel armed like that," one of the twins asked.

"I always have," Harry said. He brushed his hand over one of the runes stitched on the outside of the sheath which caused the sword and all to disappear.

"Blimey," Hermione said. "So that's why it looked like your hand was resting on something all last year."

"Well when my name came out of that blasted cup last year," Harry explained. "I knew that it had to have been placed in there because someone wanted to kill me. I had to do something to protect myself even if it was only carrying a concealed sword." He shrugged and said, "You don't even need permission to do that because it's legal for all of us to carry one even if it is properly hidden."

"That is true enough," Mrs. Weasley said. "But how are you going to shop for your things when you're going to be with us?"

"I'm not going to be with you the whole time," Harry told them. "In fact, I'm going right now because the potion will only last for about two hours. I'll meet up with you at Flourish & Blotts when that time runs out and then from there we can continue shopping in the crowds." He put on a dark brown cloak, tied it properly and grabbed a handful of floo powder from a pretty little urn on the mantle of the parlour he'd painted just the day before in a bright soft lemon yellow tone. "See you there," he said as he threw down the powder and disappeared in a flare of green flames after having properly said, "Diagon Alley."

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

Mrs. Weasley proud of her little Prefects gave a small party, filled with drink and snacking foods the day before they had to return to the school. She presented Ron with his asked for item, a ' _new_ ' Cleansweep Eleven broom.

The Weasley family had the tradition of giving their children something special when they made Prefect. It was usually a personal post Owl, but Ron already had one in the form of Pigwidgeon or Pig for short. So he asked for a new broom, not necessarily one that was top of the line, but just one that was _new_ to him.

Harry walked around the large purple coloured dining room they'd chosen to use for the party because some order members had wanted to attend. He'd heard all sorts of comments from them about himself. He just shook his head and walked away from their pitying looks and comments in his direction about how a lack of a Prefect Badge could be an indicator that Dumbledore didn't have confidence in him.

' _They think that I'm upset at not getting the Prefect Badge,_ ' he thought with a mental sneer. ' _Sure, it would have proven to everyone that Dumbledore had confidence in me, but I don't need his approval to feel confident. I'm certainly not looking to him for it. The lack of badge will allow me to rebel against the norm for a bit, especially with my independent classes. At least Remus and Sirius know my true feelings on the subject and they know about my real tutors and some of the different things that I've been learning._ ' He looked around the room again and noticed how Ron was beaming over his broom.

The twins were talking to Dung in a corner of the room. The odious man with questionable morals, Mundungus ' _Dung_ ' Fletcher was no doubt trying to sell them non-tradeable potion ingredients. He wandered over and sure enough the man was trying to get the twins to pay twice as much as the man's first quote for a packet of questionable seeds.

"Twenty Galleons for the seeds," the man said. "I'll not take a Sickle less."

"Twenty," Fred protested. "You quoted us ten earlier."

"If I were you two, I'd hurry up and pay for those Venomous Tentacula seeds," Harry whispered to them.

"What for," George replied. "No one's looking at us."

"Yes, but Moody's here," Harry said. "That eye of his can see through the back of his head, quite literally. You know that!"

"Right you are," Dung said and started to sweat at the thought of being caught by the paranoid ex-Ministry Auror. "Ten Galleons it is, give'em here." He handed over the seeds and quickly left the boys to their own devices.

"Thanks," Fred said and left the room immediately to store them away. Harry just winked slyly at George who nearly cackled before returning to the centre of the room to allow others to talk at him or to him depending on who was nearby.

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

 **TBC…**

(...i...) Depingo = Paint (Latin with help from  ablemedia dot com/ ctcweb /showcase /wordsonline dot html (remove the space and change the word dot to find site) )

(...ii...) Inspired by the following web links - (change the dots and removed the spaces, or just google color psychology, interesting idea. I wonder if it's why Dumbledore chooses colorful robes, now there's a thought!)

1)  library dot thinkquest dot org/27066/psychology/nlcolorpsych dot html

2)  www dot colour-affects dot co dot uk/psychological-properties-of-colours


	6. Chapter 6

**CH 6**

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

Catching the train for the next school year wasn't all that hard to do, although the number of people staring at him was beginning to give him a headache. "I should have just flooed to Hogsmeade," Harry muttered as he received another glare from a group of mixed students in one of the train compartments that he'd just walked past. "I should have just gone directly to Hogsmeade."

"Yes, you should have," Luna agreed as he sat down across from her. He'd found her in one of the last cars and had decided to join her.

Neville joined them not long after and as soon as the boy had sat down Harry closed and locked the compartment's door. "That's enough of that," he said. "You two don't mind, do you?"

"Not at all," Luna said.

"Neville," Harry asked.

"What about Ron and Hermione," Neville asked, as he shook his head to indicate that he didn't mind the magical seclusion. But he'd wondered about the red-head and the muggle-born that were always around Harry.

"Prefects," Harry said. "Both of them are the fifth year Gryffindor Prefects. So they've got duties and are in the Prefect car. I told them to go do their jobs and that I'd see them in the Great Hall later."

"Both of them," Neville asked in confusion. "Odd isn't it? I didn't think that Ron would want such a responsibility."

"I don't think he does," Harry said. "I certainly don't…" He looked at the little plant that the shy Gryffindor was carrying and asked with curiosity in his voice, "What _is_ that?"

"Mimbulus mimbletonia," Neville replied in a pleased tone. "It's really beautiful and rare too. My Great Uncle Algie picked it out for me from Assyria." He showed them how it was protected.

It was a little grey looking cactus thing that had bulbous little boils in the place where normal cactus spines would be. A little poke with a sharp quill and all three students were covered in ' _stinksap_ '.

"That is so cool," Harry said honestly, after he spit out a bit of the sap that had landed partly in his mouth. "Let me collect a bit of it or… is it better to just get some directly from the plant?"

"It's the first time that this has happened," Neville confessed as he watched the other boy pull out a few small empty potions vials. "Usually I just poke it with the tip of my finger and only one of the pustules next to where I poked it, will squirt a little. Are you taking that to study for potions?"

"I guess it didn't like being poked with a sharp quill," Harry said after he used his wand to gather up the exploded sap. "Scourgify," he said which cleaned them up and removed any remaining stinksap. "Not quite, I'm studying the basics of Alchemy which has influenced a lot of potions in general."

"Why'd you keep some of the sap," Neville asked.

"If it's as rare as you say, then I figure that I'd keep a little bit to experiment with," Harry said. He took out his Potions and Herbology book in order to look up the uses for stinksap. "Do you think that stinksap is one of the main ingredients used in the making of dungbombs?"

"You're not thinking of making your own dungbombs," Neville asked in a horrified tone. "Are you?"

Harry looked up and said, "Why not? The muggle Americans come up with all sorts of stuff that smell bad. My favourite is something they use in fishing called ' _Stink Bait_ '. It really reeks of something awful, actually worse than dungbombs." He paused to take a sniff from one of his vials that contained the sap. "Actually I think it smells worse than the stinksap to be honest, the sap is slightly sweet in a funny and odd sort of way. My friends and I had great fun this past summer. We challenged each other to just smell the stuff. We even bought the worst ones for a stink contest. I have some with me do you want to smell them?"

"Why would you want to do that," Neville asked with a vigorous shake of his head. Stinksap was bad enough, but to smell something worse. He was curious, but not enough to try it. Well not on the first day of school anyway, he was looking forward to the feast. He wondered if the Boy-Who-Lived was going to follow in the Weasley Twins' pranking footsteps. "Why make your own?"

"Hm," Harry said as he made a few notes in his magical weapons idea journal. Then he looked up and asked, "What was that?"

"Why would you plan to make your own dungbombs," Neville asked.

"I was actually thinking that if they were really strong and stank badly enough, they'd knock someone out," Harry said. "It'd be easier to conserve your magic for the things you really need it for like shield spells and other offensive stuff. If you could knock your enemy out with something like a super stink pellet or maybe some other kind of thrown trap it'd be useful in battle, don't you think?"

"Huh," Neville noised. "I never thought about it."

"Hey do me a favour would you," Harry said with a measuring look to the boy. "Throw your hand up and say ' _Illuminate_ ' out loud."

Neville shrugged, threw his hand up and said, "Illuminate." His grey-green eyes widened as his body was covered with a pale yellow light. "What's this?"

"A test for different magical skills," Luna observed. "I wonder…" She too did the upward sweep with her hand and found herself bathed in a pale purple light. "Wow!"

"How do you turn it off," Neville started to panic.

"Take it easy Neville," Harry said in a patient tone as he noted the differences in intensity and colour of the two lights. "Just say Nox and it'll go away."

"Nox," the boy said and breathed a sigh of relief. "What…huff…in Merlin's name…puff…was that?"

"An Illusion spell for lighting up an area," Harry said. He made a note in his book that both Neville and Luna could be taught some of the spells from the other Schools of Magic, like Alteration, Illusion or Restoration. They'd have to figure out a test for those schools though. He, himself, was stronger in Destruction and Alteration magic, but that didn't mean he couldn't learn spells from the other Schools of Magic. It's partly what he'd been doing during his summer schooling anyway.

"Illusion spell," Neville looked confused. "Light up an area...?"

"In the ancient times," Luna said as she picked up her copy of her father's paper called The Quibbler. "It had been rumoured that around the time of the Founders there was more than one kind of magic available to humans. Some humans needed wands and others just needed imagination to formulate their spells. Although with time more and more humans needed tools like a wand or a staff to just access their magic. It's rumoured in the book Hogwarts: A History that the Founders didn't need wands or that if they did, it was only to do really big and complicated spells because the wands or staves were used as magical foci."

"I recently found a book that gave detailed explanations on the old Schools of Magic," Harry said with a nod. "I tried doing some of the spells. The illuminate one is one that's probably going to be the best to test if someone can learn a different form of magic or not." He looked at the other Gryffindor and said, "It probably helps that you have a large pool of magic in your core too."

"I don't," Neville said as he flopped down to sit beside Luna.

"You do actually," Harry said. "I can sometimes see the pools of a person's magic."

"Anyone can do that," Luna said and turned her staring gaze to the blond boy next to her. "Not many take the time though and your wand is funny."

"It's not my wand," Neville said with a sigh. "It was my father's."

"I wish I had my parents' wands," Harry said. "I doubt that I'd be able to use them though." He paused and then his eyes widened as he realized, "Is that why you have troubles with…"

Neville didn't say anything because he just nodded.

"Wow," Harry said. "You've been fighting to properly cast spells and you've been doing it. That's just…" The other boy looked up at the sound of awe in the voice of the Boy-Who-Lived. "Really that's just…wow."

"You think it's a good thing," Neville asked in confusion.

"Well yeah," Harry said. "When you finally get your true wand, I can just imagine how much better you'll be doing in class. You'd take first in Charms that's for sure."

"You think so," Neville asked with a hopeful tone.

"Don't you," Harry returned. "I had to get a new one this summer. It took just as forever to find it like my first one and in the end Ollivander had to make it." He held out his new wand. It was made of black walnut wood, spiraled with the branch of a red holly tree and the core was made of braided acromantula silk, sphinx mane and three strands of his own hair to link the wand to him. The cores then had been coated with one drop of blood from the sphinx that he'd met during the Triwizard Tournament's third task and one from him. Not that he mentioned this to them or anyone else. Even his fathers didn't even know because he'd been taken into Olivander's back warehouse for the making of his personalized wand.

"That's interesting," Luna said. "I didn't know that he made wands when needed."

"He did say that I would need a new wand before the start of this year," Harry told them. Then he explained what had happened at the weighing of the wands including how the Beauxbatons girl was the granddaughter of a Veela.

Neville laughed and said, "So that's why the older boys were falling over themselves to help her out."

Luna nodded and said with a giggle, "They certainly did."

A few hours later, after they'd played a few rounds of Exploding Snap and Gobstones Neville asked, "What other spells are there in those schools of magic that you were talking about?"

"It depends on what you want to do," Harry said. "There are seven actual schools of magic, but only six are acknowledged in the book I found. The seventh is Necromancy and even that's kind of a banned subject in our world."

The Ravenclaw peeked up at them over the top of her upside down magazine. The other Gryffindor nodded. "The other six schools are Alteration, Conjuration, Destruction, Illusion, Mysticism and Restoration. The magic we're taught at Hogwarts is a mix of these and have been bound to different purposes like the Lumos spell where only the tip of your wand lights up."

"What do you mean," Neville asked.

"A witch or wizard waves their wand, says Lumos and the tip of their wand makes a light," Harry said and demonstrated with the use of his new wand. "Nox," he said and put his wand away. "Now with ' _Illuminate_ '," he said. Even without the gesture he had a lit area around him of about three feet around them if a pale phosphorous pale greenish-blue tint.

"It's an illusion spell that's limited by your magical strength, concentration and intent. It also depends on how long you've been practicing and the spell you choose to use. There are variations of the light spell too and all are based on name, like ' _Candle Light_ ', ' _Dawn_ ', etc..., which means that it also depends on which one you want to use. They can be a constant effect or have limited duration. Nox," he said putting out the light he had summoned using the old form.

"So why did you ask me to try it," Neville asked.

"I wanted to know if someone else could do it," Harry said. "I'm planning to study those spells on top of several others we're supposed to learn in DADA. I'm hoping that they'll help me. Anyone know who the DADA Professor will be this year?"

"My father said that an Educational Decree was passed in the Wizengamot," Luna said. "It basically says that if the Headmaster can't fill the position then the Ministry of Magic will be placing someone in the school."

"Oh that's not good," Harry said and shook his head. "That is so not good." The other two only nodded.

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

As predicted first Defense Against the Dark Arts class of the year was not a good one. The fifth years had already heard rumours and they'd known that some of the older and younger students had already earned themselves, what seemed like painful detentions.

Harry's own class took place on a Thursday. (…i…)

All students that had attended the class so far had been surprised at the way the woman approached the subject of magical defense. It was very clear that she had an agenda to follow based the Ministry of Magic's attitude towards the return of the Dark Lord.

"Hem, hem," the woman said to the students in the room. "Books and quills out. Put your wands away. Read the first three chapters and summarize them."

An intrepid student had dared to ask, "When are we going to practice the spells for defense?"

"Put your hand up and wait for me to call on you before asking your question," Professor Dolores Umbridge said.

She had been the person chosen by the Ministry of Magic to temporarily fill the position when Dumbledore hadn't been permitted to have Sirius Black as the Professor for Defence Against the Dark Arts until the man had finished seeing his Mind Healer. Luckily Sirius only had a couple of more sessions to go. They were going to be finished mid-October which was when he was permitted to be present in the school in order to teach the subject.

Meanwhile the students were stuck with the Ministry toady that had been placed in the school to evaluate the subjects being taught. Her purpose was to see that they were being taught to the Ministry Standard, whatever that meant.

The student who'd asked the question had then put their hand up and re-asked it, to which the reply left more than one of them silently grumbling. They knew better than to voice their discontent with the woman as some of them had read about her from the newspapers. They weren't stupid because they also knew about her from the laws she tended to want passed within the Ministry of Magic.

Although what the Underground Courier had been implying about her had been something to the effect that the woman had not been able to get most of the votes needed to pass the harsher proposals that she kept bringing up, especially against magical creatures.

"Mr. Potter," she said. "You don't seem to agree."

"Whether I agree or not, you are the Professor for the time being," he said. "Obviously you have definite opinions about how we should be able to defend ourselves now that the Dark Lord has returned, but it makes me wonder just why you would want us students to fail our Ministry OWLs in the subject."

"You lie," Professor Umbridge said. "Spreading evil, nasty, attention-seeking stories, you've just earned yourself detention with me after supper."

"Now I remember you," Harry said and snapped his fingers for emphasis. "You were at the trial for Sirius Black were you not?"

"All Ministry Officials were," she said in a tone of voice that indicated that she was trying to calm down. "What of it?"

"Then you know that I'm not lying," Harry said and sat back down.

"All nasty little boys like you tell lies to suit them," Professor Umbridge said. "You'll be at detention or your record will be permanently tarnished."

Harry nodded. ' _Tarnish it then,_ ' he thought. ' _Calling me a liar, well we'll just see how the magic will nail your coffin, Miss Toad._ '

Madam Bones had taken the time to explain his Geas condition to him and his father. So had the goblins at the bank when they'd returned the goblin charmed items. She'd told him that if anyone accused him of lying or forced him to try and admit that he had lied that he could call on his magic for a defensive response. He only had to add the words ' _so-mote-it-be_ ' and the magic would do the rest. She had advised him to keep track of the incidences for his own protection to keep from being sued for damages or other kinds of nonsense should an individual be harmed by the magical consequences of challenging the Geas spell on him.

Harry had arrived at his detention that night with something official to track all instances that someone declared him to be a liar. He had charmed a quill and note pad to follow him around for just that purpose. They were usually in his pocket, but he figured that he should prove to the Professor that he had them on hand for that specific purpose.

"Mr. Potter, you are not permitted to use a charmed quill to write lines for you," Professor Umbridge said.

"It's not charmed for that purpose ma'am," Harry said. "I was advised to record every instance that someone declares me a liar by the Head of the D.M.L.E. It had been recommended as a form of defense because of that magical Geas that had been laid on me this summer by the Minister of Magic himself."

"You should know better than to lie to me young man," the woman said, but noticed that the quill next to the boy started to write down her words with a magical date and time stamp. "You dare..."

"No," Harry interrupted. "It's just to record how many times someone calls me a liar before I choose to take action."

Professor Umbridge was prepared to blast the quill and parchment, but she figured that it would be better to let the boy believe that his efforts were working. "Very well then," she said. She placed a black, sinister looking quill in front of him and said, "You're punishment is to write lines. You shall right ' _I will not tell lies,_ ' five hundred times."

Harry looked at the dark quill. He pulled out his wand and scanned it. "You want me to write lines with this," he asked in an incredulous tone of voice. "Plus you want me to admit to something that I cannot do. I'm afraid you'll have to come up with some other form of punishment madam."

"You'll do as I say," she said fingering her wand quite prepared to use it to force the issue.

"Professor Umbridge," Harry said. "You were there when the Minister of Magic used a goblin made artifact and laid that magical Geas on me. I cannot write those lines as you would like me to do. It goes against the conditions in the curse magic used. If you do not desist, you will not like the magical repercussions."

The woman narrowed her eyes and cast the Imperious Curse on him. "Imperio," she intoned. "You will write those lines as stated and you will use the implements provided. Obey at once."

Harry played a game with her and pretended to obey her when he pulled out a sheaf of parchment he took out his wand too. He laid a piece of the parchment over the quill and hissed (...Note to Grubstone, quill contained has been used as student punishment at Hogwarts...Envelop, envelope...)

The written note appeared on the parchment to the goblin. He had been posted in the Hogsmeade Bank Branch of Gringotts for quite some time now, but Harry was the first human to have earned the right to know him by name. The parchment folded over the quill into the form of an envelope. It was addressed to the goblin on the outside of it.

"Dobby," Harry called. The house-elf popped into the room and took the envelope that his young master pointed to. "Take that to Grubstone in Hogsmeade as soon as is reasonable today."

"Yes master Harry," the house-elf popped out of the room, but not before he stuck his tongue out at the toad faced Professor and blew the woman a spit filled raspberry.

Harry looked at the woman, shook his head and left the room before she could do anything else. Just before the door closed he heard her say, "I'll be notifying your Head of House about this insolence and fifty points from Gryffindor for failure to obey a Professor."

"I hope you notify more than just her," Harry muttered as he returned to the common room of Gryffindor House. At this point he didn't really care that he'd lost the points, it was more important to get that woman out of the school as soon as possible especially for the safety of all students.

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

 **TBC…**

(…i…) Timetable changed to suit the flow of this story.


	7. Chapter 7

**CH 7**

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

Professor McGonagall was not thrilled that one of her favourites had garnered the attention of Professor Umbridge so soon. The woman had asked for a meeting with the Headmaster, herself and Harry Potter for the following day. She'd sent a note to the boy to attend the meeting in the Headmaster's office and now they waited for the young man to arrive.

Harry hissed (...Open...) at the gargoyle that guarded the Headmaster's office. He held up a shiny bit of exotic metal in the shape of an oval gem and inserted it into the stone guardian's mouth. The gargoyle moved out of the way with a satisfied rumble and crunching noise, (…Just this once…) He said. (…I was told you might like these and I can't imagine you getting them that often or at all. It's as if someone may have forgotten about the needs of stone guardians…)

The magical creature nodded its head and allowed him to take the revolving stairs behind him without making the Boy-Who-Lived guess at the current Headmaster's candy named passwords. The young man smiled remembering last year and how he found out about that little Parseltongue trick to bypass the current Headmaster's candy obsessed manipulations.

"Come in Mr. Potter," Headmaster Dumbledore called out to him, surprised that the boy had gained entrance so quickly. He was positive that the boy would at least be stuck out in the corridor for about five minutes guessing at the password. He did so enjoy making the people he summoned guess at the sweet names that he changed on a near monthly basis. It gave him ideas to find different sweets since the muggle-born students had access to many different types of sugared confections.

The old man had also been hoping that he wouldn't come into the boy's presence this early in the year since he strongly suspected that the Dark Lord had access to the boy's mind. Too bad the old coot didn't think to talk to the young man to find out that that wasn't the case at all.

"Sir," Harry said as he came into the room. "Ladies and Fawkes," he said as he elected to conjure up his own chair instead of waiting for someone to do it for him. It was considered extremely rude to do so, but then again how was he to know that when such things were no longer taught at this school. He sat down in it, next to the firebird's perch and asked, "What can I do for you?"

"You can explain why you felt the need to defy your Defense Professor and you failed to complete the lines she gave you to do for detention," Professor McGonagall started out, miffed at the loss of those points. "Gryffindor lost an extreme amount of points because of that."

"You mean when she called me a liar and then used the Imperious Curse in order to force me to use a Blood Quill to write lines," Harry asked. "I didn't want my magic to hurt the Professor, so I thought it best to leave before acting in any other fashion."

"You did lie to me," Professor Umbridge stated to everyone in the room. "That boy has lied about the return of the Dark Lord too and he's still doing it."

"You were present at Sirius Black's trial where you not?" Harry replied. "You know that I can not lie."

"You can too," the odious woman said. "You're doing it right now, trying to get the honourable Professor and Headmaster here to doubt my sincerity."

Harry stood up, pulled out his new wand, place it crossed his heart and declared, "I swear on my magic that the Dark Lord has returned and that I cannot tell a lie due to Geas Command. Magic of mine defend me against mine own accuser so-mote-it-be!"

It had been the simplest activation form of protection for someone that had a curse upon them and especially of the old magical Geas Command Curse. It only worked if the accuser kept denying the limitations of someone's geas condition and if the accuser had been present when the curse magic was laid.

The goblins dealt with family squabbles and thefts in that manner still. All legal through their own private clan or the clan courts. It looked like the humans had nearly forgotten those old forms of magic and to accuse someone who had a Geas Curse on them preventing a particular action meant that magic could be called upon for retribution. The magic inherent in the individual guided the form of the punishment without a directed spell. That's just the way it worked.

A piece of floating parchment and a charmed quill had recorded all words with a date and time stamp in order to protect his interests. It included everything in a typed script format which was what Harry had found most useful. But the script had also included the declarations that he was a liar and the words for the Imperious Curse.

Madam Bones had remembered to tell him about the specific charms that he needed to use on the quill. But she'd also been the one to provide him with the magical ministerial record paper. It was almost like having an official ministry scribe present taking down everything said by everyone around him.

All eyes that looked at him were surprised by the swirl of colour that whirled around him and then dove into the heart of the woman that had been assigned by the Ministry of Magic to undermine those teaching at the school of Hogwarts. She'd been placed there to monitor the school and to spread doubt about the return of the Dark Lord.

"Harry," his Head of House said in a startled tone as she half stood to do something, but was not sure what. She just looked at him in shock.

"You've read the transcripts of Sirius' trial," he stated since he'd known that most members of the Order of the Phoenix had read them. "Even if you haven't you should know that everything that happened was true. The Minister of Magic has laid a Geas Curse on me and she," he pointed to Umbridge. "Was present at the time therefore she knew about it. It's all on record officially and it certainly is not my fault that she refuses to believe it."

"What's going to happen to her now," she looked at the woman that was twitching and had some smoke coming off her pink, fuzzy sweater. She had moved her chair slightly further away from the spell struck woman.

"I don't know," Harry said. "I just followed Madam Bones' advice and said what she told me to say."

"I think that your magic only struck her," the Headmaster said. "Madam Pomfrey will sort her out, but for the time being your classmates will still have to have her as a stand-in Professor at least until Sirius can take over the class." He stroked his beard and then said, "You're to be removed from Defence Class for independent study in the meantime. We can't have you in her sights."

"That's all right," Harry said. "I know I can study that subject much better that any Professor you've ever hired for the subject other than Professor Lupin because he was just brilliant at the subject of course." He paused and then asked, "Can I ask that Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom be excused as well until Sirius comes to teach, that is?"

The Headmaster's eyebrows rose, but the man nodded. There was a knock on the office door and in came the Head of Slytherin House, followed by the other two Heads of House, three goblins and Madam Pomfrey.

"Severus," Dumbledore said the man's name in a questioning tone, seeking answers, while he wondered why goblins would be at his school. He knew that the school's vaults were in good working order or so that's what the books said.

"They're here for her," the Potions Master pointed at the smoking woman, who was still slumped in the conjured chair. He had an eyebrow quirked up at the sight and wondered just what happened to the odious woman.

"Whatever for," Professor McGonagall asked.

"Mr. Potter," Grubstone looked to the young man. "I received your note last night."

"I hope that you were not inconvenienced by it," Harry stood to bow respectfully at the creature. "I did feel it to be a matter of some importance."

"Not at all," the goblin replied with a full, toothed grin. "We've been instructed by our clan Heads to track any goblin made artifacts or gifts to ensure that they are not being incorrectly used." He sneered at the Ministry toady before continuing. "We've been investigating the situation that occurred to you this past summer and the Goblin King has decided to deactivate all goblin gifts given to the Ministry of Magic and some of those gifted to prominent human Families," he glanced at the human female dressed in pink, still smoking from the protective magics. "This is to prevent any other incident of that nature. Lucky that you were able to keep your situation limited in duration."

"I was lucky," Harry nodded. He then looked to the Professors present and explained. "I'd realized what was happening just in time since I felt strange magic being activated in the court room." He shrugged at their incredulous looks at having been able to sense the activation of magic for someone his age. "I was able to limit the time frame of the Geas to ' _this scholastic year_ '. I used Parseltongue to cover up what I said so that additional conditions couldn't be added in English."

"She accused you of lying then," Professor Snape observed as he watched the foul woman come to under the skill full wand of the Mediwitch (Mw.) Poppy Pomfrey. "Interesting effect," he stated. Then he developed a distinctly calculating look and directed it at the Boy-Who-Lived. It looked like he wanted to test that lying theory for himself.

"Magic just knocked her out," Mw. Pomfrey said. "She'll have a headache, but that's all. I wouldn't recommend any kind of magical relief or potion since the magic may lash at her making the effects linger much longer than it normally would. This is a punishment for the accusation against someone with this kind of curse. I've seen it happen before." She nodded to everyone and said, "I'll return to the Infirmary now and make a note of it in for her private Healer's files."

"Mr. Potter you're dismissed," the Headmaster said. He still refused to look the boy in the eye and Harry had long since given up on the old man. He certainly wasn't looking towards him for any type of approval now that he'd been blood adopted by Sirius Black and Remus Lupin.

"Just a moment," Grubstone said. "We need to question him. We also want to know if this woman has given detention to any other students. If she made them write lines we'll need their names in order to redress this issue and have her pay compensation for the abuse."

"You'll need their Heads of House present too," Professor McGonagall said. "I'll send those students a note and we can all gather in one of the meeting rooms near the entrance. Harry, please escort them to room 10A on the main floor. I think it will accommodate all of us."

"Yes ma'am," Harry said. "May I order tea for everyone too?"

"Of course," the Headmaster said and waved him away.

"Follow me please," Harry said to the goblins. They'd all left as his Head of House sent notes with a small army of house-elves to get the students in the same place to discuss something of a very serious nature.

It was very serious business since the goblins had placed magical hand-cuffs on Professor Umbridge's wrists and were currently leading her around the school like a common criminal. There were a lot of students twittering about it and the rumour mill was highly active again not that it had ever stopped.

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

"All of you should have had the sense to come to your Head of House," Professor McGonagall told the five students present. The goblins had left the meeting complete with all questions answered and they took the foul woman away with them as she could not be trusted to remain at the school at this time. They had examined her rooms confiscated all questionable artefacts and received a copy of Harry's script of his time in detention with her. They also had their own personal issues against her to deal with and it was best done away from the school.

"I did," Fred Weasley said. "You told me to keep my head down and not make a fuss."

"Well you could have said that she was making you use a Blood Quill," the woman replied sharply.

Fred looked to Harry who nodded and asked the question that many of the Professors didn't want to hear from a student. "Did you let them tell you their side of the situation or did you blame the student for being punished because they were trying to ask questions of Professor Umbridge? Also not everyone can articulate what happened in a way that makes it understood that something wrong was going on. We don't learn about prohibited artefacts either so how are we supposed to know that what she was doing was not legal. She implied that you all knew about it."

The three Heads of House didn't say a word as it seemed that they were all guilty of not wanting to rock the Ministry boat anymore than it should. Harry looked to all of them and stated. "You do know that the Ministry does not have any jurisdiction at this school right?"

"What do you mean," Professor Snape asked. He wasn't surprised that his lone sixth year student hadn't even come forward to him. He knew it was because his Slytherin would rather plot revenge rather than complain. If the woman came back she would be subject to that revenge and he wouldn't do a thing against his student so long as the youth understood that they were not to get caught.

"It's in the Founders' Charter of Hogwarts' Rules and Regulations," Harry said. "This is a ' _Private School_ ' and as such the Ministry can only insist that some of the curriculum conform to Ministry Testing requirements because the specialty guilds, like Potions, Defense, Healing etc…have demanded it. That's why they administer the O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s they way they do. Unless something has happened in recent law to change that…" He paused and the carried on with a shrug. "Which is something I'm not sure of."

"The Board of Governors would have noticed something of this nature," Professor McGonagall said.

"They were appointed by prominent families only three hundred and thirty-four years ago," Harry replied with a huff. "Their purpose is to oversee the management of school funds for the purpose of building maintenance and comparable reference and materials fees for all magical children invited to attend this school. I don't see how _they_ are supposed to dictate what's taught here or how either." He looked at all of the various expressions being sent at him and so he looked down to the dusty floor saying, "I'm sorry, I could be wrong there too."

"This will require some kind of review," Professor Flitwick said. "What will we do for the Defence Class now that the goblins have taken their Professor out of here?"

"Wasn't she supposed to be monitoring or evaluating the school or something of that nature," Professor Sprout questioned.

"We're getting off track here," Professor Snape said. He looked to the students and said, "No Professor can assign any kind of corporal punishment that harms the student while they are attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It's in the student regulations handbook that you as students should have read. It's a part of your school letter package before agreeing to attend this school or at the very least you should have bought yourselves a copy from the school stores."

"Um," Harry hedged as his fellow students panicked including the only seventh year there. "There was no handbook of school regulations on the booklist with my first school letter or any other after that." He looked to the nodding students and then continued, "It wasn't even listed as a book essential or advised to be purchased along with the other texts for class requirements."

"What," Professor Snape said. "Surely copies were made available in your common rooms."

"If they were we weren't told about them," Harry said.

The man was about to yell at him for lying when he was interrupted by his own Slytherin's words. "The Prefects did not point them out Professor nor did you mention them during your speech when you welcomed us to our House."

"You got a speech," Fred said with in impressed whistle. "Lucky you we only had the Prefects telling us where our dorms were before we knocked off to bed."

"Obviously each House has their own method of doing things," the third year Ravenclaw said. "What are we going to do about Defense Class?"

"It's only for a month or so before Professor Black can come," Harry said. "If we can use one of the larger duelling halls for true practical practice we should be all right. Maybe we can write to Remus for a copy of his syllabus to use as a guide for the start of the year. He seemed much more organized than the other defense teachers I've known, what do you think Professors?"

"The boy does have a point," Professor Flitwick said. "We can have the Prefects monitor the duelling rooms…"

"What about the first to fourth years," Professor Sprout said.

"Have them do readings and essays," the third year Ravenclaw said. "It's what we did in the beginning of every year so far, why should this one be any different? If Professor Black is going to be here anyway, let him make the corrections by correspondence. Why not let him send us the assignments from a distance too?"

Harry turned to Professor Snape, "Sir you do have Mastery in Defense right? Couldn't you set something up for them in the mean time? A practice schedule or something of that nature?"

' _What is Potter up to,_ ' the man thought, but he nodded. "I could certainly follow the wolf's old syllabus, but what of the older years?"

"O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s, plus sixth years will just have to do the Ministry's evaluation tests to figure out what they're lacking," Professor Flitwick said. "If they did that they'd know where to begin their independent studies, what do you think?"

"Foolish," Severus said as though he'd leave the older students unmonitored. "Let them do it then and we'll just see who passes." He turned to the students still present. "Spread the word among your compatriots that there is a student regulations handbook that will let them know what a Professor can and cannot do during a detention. This should at the very least mitigate any wild accusation stating that we approve of _any_ kind of physical harm or that physical harm has ever been used as punishment. If it has then I'd suggest thoroughly researching those circumstances. Understood?"

"Yes sir," the students said almost altogether.

"Well then," the man said. "Get out of here before I dock points." The students scrambled out of the meeting room. Leaving their Head of Houses to come up with something for the Defense Against the Dark Arts class.

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

Harry's next DADA class was very different from the one with the Ministry Professor, who still hadn't returned to the school after being hauled away in unconscious humiliation by irate goblins.

Hermione walked in carrying a stack of booklets.

"These are the Ministry's O.W.L.s evaluation test books for the Defense Against the Dark Arts exams. The answers can be found at the back of them," she said. "Everyone must to take one and use it as a test of your current DADA levels. They're a tool to use as a review of what you'll need to learn and know in order to pass your DADA O.W.L. Next class you'll have the option to use the Library, a Study Hall or the fifth year assigned duelling location on the fourth floor, corridor eight, room 467. You must put your choice on this sign up form so that the Professors know where you are. If you do not put your names down for any other location then you are to report to this room or else."

"Or else what Granger," one of the Slytherins sneered.

"Or else face Professor Snape's wrath," she said as she brought one of the booklets to Ron and Harry while the rest of the students whispered about what she'd just said. Most had wandered up to the table and picked up a book while choosing to sign up to be at some other location for the next class.

She opened up hers and began to make notes of the questions being asked in the book as she explained to everyone, "Professor Snape is going to be one of the Professors monitoring those sign up forms so whatever you write down on it will be noted by those Professors. Even if they are not present here today they will still know where you're supposed to be for your next DADA class."

Harry put his booklet away because he wanted to finish the extra credit proposal that he'd been in the process writing up for Professor Flitwick and his Charms Class. He'd hoped that the Professor would allow it. It wasn't like he was going to create something terribly complicated.

It had been a lucky thing that Grubstone had come to the school too since the goblin had been the one to let him know about the Copyright issue with his creating a magical version of the particular muggle board game he'd chosen to convert for fun and hopefully to gain extra credit for his Charms and Transfiguration classes. He had to pay a fee and buy the rights to make the version he wanted because the original patent was currently owned by an elderly squib.

Harry had made sure that that was all in order before he could bring his proposal to the Charms and Transfiguration Professors. Payment had been properly made and he had his confirmation papers with him so that he could actually make the proposal and re-create the game.

It was now just a matter of outlining the magical properties he wanted to include as well as researching different types of charms that would make certain objects move and the transfiguration portions that altered the steps in the hallways of the board game. It was going to be interesting to see if he could change some things to be more of the Wizarding World rather than the muggle.

His game of choice was Clue or Cluedo depending on the version he was using as a template, but the principal of the thing was there. If it turned out well he was hoping that the twins would be willing to add it to their store offerings for whenever they opened an actual physical store.

Although it would never be a prank item it was certainly still classified as a new toy of some sort. He was hoping that he could work on it long enough to produce testing copies for the common rooms of each House in the school.

"Harry you should be studying," Hermione said when she noticed his attention was not on the booklet she'd just given him.

"I'm planning to do it this weekend," he said after adding death by a basilisk stare as one of the possible ways to die in Hogwarts Cluedo. He had the standard ones like hanging rope and knife, but he replaced the gun since that was a muggle concept that would never work in a magical environment. He chose to change it to death by exploding cauldron since he'd already seen the kind of destruction that one of those could do and he added a poison vial as another death option too.

His version of Clue was going to be centred on Hogwarts since he didn't know the layout of mansion like places, but he did know his school. It had several noteworthy places, like the Astronomy Tower, the Library, the Quidditch Pitch, the Forbidden Forest, etc… and those could be used to make up the locations where the game murder took place.

Four of the six figures would be the founders plus two that every student has used as a swear word or an exclamation quite frequently are those of Merlin and Morgana. However he wanted more ways to die rather than just limit them to the six in the normal game, but that involved some finicky calculations that he was actually looking forward to.

He rolled up his notes and put them away as the bell was about to ring. He chose not to write his name on the form sheet at the front of the room. He looked to see where most everybody chose to be and wasn't surprised that Hermione was going to go to the library while most others, including Ron, wanted to go to the duelling room.

Only three students had not chosen to put their names down for anything, one was Neville who looked like he wanted to talk to Harry and the other was Hannah Abbott, who was not in class with them today.

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

Near the end of September, Harry was still testing some of the students for abilities in the old form of spell casting. He wanted to get at least some of the third years involved in his project and word of mouth was just not working so well. So he put up a notice on of the House dorms notice boards that stated the following:

 _ANCIENT MAGICAL STUDY - ALL HOUSES WELCOME_

 _YEARS 3 & UP ONLY_

 _Interested in researching ancient magical techniques?_

 _Think you may have the ability to learn something unique and new?_

 _Final Magical Testing will take place, last two Saturdays of September._

 _TIME: Between 10am and noon, only._

 _LOCATION: Rm. DD2243, sub-dungeon, level 2, old dueling hall._

 _Come if interested, no admissions will be accepted after October 1_ _st_ _of this year._

 _HP_

"Really Harry," Hermione said as she posted the last notice in the Gryffindor common room. "What's this all about?"

"Just something I've discovered," Harry said. "I want to know if any other students have the same capability to learn this magical form or not."

"But you posted this in all four common rooms," Ron said. "Why?"

"I'm not going to limit this to only those from my House Ron," Harry said. "I want this to be for all Houses in this school. It's not fair to do otherwise."

Ron huffed, but Hermione said, "Think about it. How would you like it if Gryffindors were excluded from some kind of assembly just because we're not liked?"

"I'd claim bias," Ron said and the nodded. "All right, I get it. But what is all of this."

"Practice of magic, a different sort of magic, that's all," Harry replied. "It might contain DADA stuff, but it's going to mainly be something else." He paused in his notes and then said, "It's not like everyone that tries this will be able to do it. I've already tested several people and the ability is either there or not."

"I don't understand," Hermione said.

"Well if you want to know what it is," Harry looked at her. "Just come and try it out for yourself."

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

 **TBC…**


	8. Chapter 8

**CH 8**

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

On the second to last Saturday of September, Harry had set up his assigned room for his supplemental studies. He had a section hidden at the far end of the hall for weapons training, swords and bows, plus another forms of weaponry training like dagger and staff. Also the secluded area had a basic Alchemical table and an enchanting alter, all behind soundproof colourful privacy screens. He wasn't prepared to teach anyone in any of those techniques. Although he'd been told by his Canyon School instructors that he could teach weaponry basics before passing a student onto a more experienced teacher, but only if he wanted to.

He had tested some of his fellow fifth years when they showed up to DADA class who'd found that he was there because he hadn't signed up to study elsewhere. He made them do the illuminate test and so far only four students were able to learn from the old form.

They were: Neville Longbottom from Gryffindor; Luna Lovegood and Eddie Charmichael (...i...) from Ravenclaw; and finally Astoria Greengrass from Slytherin. Some may not have been from his year, but that was because it was Luna that had brought them to him for private testing.

In the room for those final Saturdays he'd set up a table with two chairs and two wooden boxes. He had a notebook set to the side in order to list the names of the students that showed up to the room. The book listed those that had passed or failed, the date of the test, including the year and House of the student.

He'd been surprised by the number of third year Ravenclaws, but then again he thought that he shouldn't have been. Their names were written in the book and graded them on the success or failure of the spells cast. It was best that they never knew what they were casting. However those with a good grasp of the Latin language would have been able to figure it out.

"Place all your wands in the box," Harry told the next student. "Close it and then follow my directions." He had the student follow through with the ' _Illuminate_ ' spell. Then with a caged and very bouncy Puffskein he had them touch the creature and say, ' _Devor Inergia_.'

Those two spells showed him who was capable of accessing the old magical forms. The intensity of light emitted showed the strength of ability. The energy drain on the Puffskin was different, depending on who did it and that was a better gauge of a student's strength.

Hermione and Ron had left him alone during his testing for that first Saturday, but they did show up during the final one of the month. They had figured that he'd show them what he was doing and that they'd be included whether they had the ability or not.

He did the tests with each of them, but they didn't have the ability. He looked at them and said, "I'm sorry, but you cannot be a part of this study group."

"What," Hermione asked incredulously. She'd never been excluded from any kind of study group before.

"Why not," Ron said. "We're your best friends."

"You're limited," Harry told them. "It's only for those that can make these spells work. Take your wands and leave. I'll see you two later."

"Really Harry," Hermione said. "What do those spells have to do with learning something new?"

"They are a part of what will be taught in this room," Harry said. "I can't tell you more than that because you lack the ability and this room is spelled for secrecy. There is a reason for this kind of testing. It's so that those who can, know that they have the option to learn to use this ability safely and at school. Those that don't have the talent will know not to show up because if they did, they'd feel frustrated that they can't do the same things that their friends can."

"I don't understand," Hermione said.

"It's old magic, very different from any development of hereditary talents," Harry said. "I have another half hour in here so I'll see you two later."

"Can't we wait in here with you," Ron asked.

"No," Harry told them. "You two have been tested and must now leave. Your presence might deter students from the other Houses from coming and I will not let you jeopardise their chances of learning something that they may want to learn if they can."

"Come on Ron," Hermione said. "I'm going to the Library to look up this information and I need your help."

Ron sighed, but followed the girl.

Harry looked up to the ceiling and huffed. ' _Why do they have to do everything that I do? It's getting tiresome._ '

"Um," a voice sounded from the doorway. A fifth year Slytherin was there, shifting from side to side.

"Enter," Harry said in a semi-tired voice. He looked up and saw that it was one of Malfoy's stooges, but he didn't mention the blond or the other half of the lumbering duo. "Name?"

"Don't you know it," Crabbe said as he entered the room and the door shut behind him.

"You have to say it so I can record it," Harry stated and pointed to his notebook. "I need you to voice it out loud for your name to appear as one of those that's been tested."

"Vincent Crabbe," the Slytherin teenager said. He watched his name go down in green ink inside the book.

"Put all your wands in the box," Harry said and pointed to the one on his left. When Crabbed had done that, putting three wands in it, the box shut itself and locked. Then the Boy-Who-Lived put his own, two wands in the second box which was locked too. "Now we are equal."

Crabbe nodded and said, "I guess that makes sense."

Harry just looked at the boy and said, "Lift your hand up like this," he demonstrated the motion, "Say the word Illuminate when you do."

Vincent was surprised at the simplicity of it, but shrugged. He lifted his hand and said, "Illuminate." He blinked several times as he lit an area of two feet around him with a soft blue light. "What does this mean?"

"Means you have the ability to learn," Harry said. "Say Nox to cancel it." He waited until the light dissipated and then he motioned to the highly energetic, bouncy Puffskein creature and said, "Put your hand on it and say Devor Inergia. Lift your hand to cancel or stop the effects."

Crabbe gulped and then did as asked, "Devor Inergia."

The changes to the little pet had been extremely visible and in a very short amount of time. The larger boy lifted his hand away almost immediately.

"Wow," Harry said with honest admiration. "You're only one of three that can do this with such a visible change this little guy." He cast an energizer spell at the little thing. " _Inergia_ ," he said with his hand on the creature. He looked at the Slytherin and said, "You're accepted for training, but the final decision is yours. I'll send you an invitation to come to a small information session and to sign a confidentiality contract. If you do that, then you can come to this room to learn new spells and practice them too."

"Who will be teaching me," Crabbe asked.

"I will, sort of," Harry said. "I'll set up a schedule of times when I'm in the room and those that have signed the contract can sign up for specific days. You don't even have to show up here after you've signed the contract. I'm just giving you an alternative learning choice."

"What if I use what you teach me to fight my father's cause," Crabbe asked.

"Then I'll see you on the other side of the battle field," Harry replied in honesty. He watched the other boy frown. "We're in school at the moment. We're here to learn and I'm not going to stop you from doing that. You have an idea of what I can teach you, but that doesn't mean that you can't go out there, find some book and learn the same things from it." He shrugged and said, "Just know that you can learn the spells _safely_ in this room and at this school for the time being."

"What of the rest of your Golden Trio," Crabbe asked. "Aren't they going to tell you who you can teach?"

"They didn't pass," Harry replied with a wicked grin. "They can't enter this room again because once you're tested you either show ability or don't. Those that don't will not be able to try again until next year. The room won't open for any of those that had failed these tests either."

"Oh," Crabbe said. "What if Malfoy wants to try?"

"He'll have to show up in the next ten minutes," Harry said as he looked at his pocket watch. "Invitations will be sent to you later and a security contract will have to be signed to protect the others and you from any form of intrusion into your minds about this _other_ ability of yours. We'll all be protected the exact same way. Just think about it." He opened the boxes so that they could retrieve their wands and then he added, "Also think about the fact that this room and this form of learning has been sanctioned and is fully approved by the Ministry of Magic."

The door to the room opened up after that. At the door they noticed that Malfoy had been hovering in the hall, but gained shocked expression when his minion Crabbe bowed to Harry. "Thank you," the larger boy said and left the room. He told his blond friend, "You have five minutes left."

"Whatever," Malfoy said. He turned and strode away as though he never wanted to find out what was happening in the room. He'd seen the Boy-Who-Lived enter and leave the room at different times during the month, but couldn't figure out what he was doing. ' _He wasn't followed by the other two,_ ' he'd thought. ' _But what is he doing in there and so close the Potions class too._ '

The blonde Slytherin Prefect paused. He looked at the time on his pocket watch and then after a quick look around the corridor, he raced back to the room where the Boy-Who-Lived looked like he was about to leave the room. "Potter," he said. "I would like..."

Harry stepped back into the room and waited for the other boy to enter. He shut the door and locked it to prevent them from being interrupted.

"Put all your wands in the box on your right," he said as he opened the box on the other side and showed that he was putting his own wands away.

"Why," Malfoy asked. "So you can..."

"Don't make assumptions," Harry replied. "Mine are in this box see."

"What do they do," Draco said. He eyed the boxes with suspicion.

"The muffle your magical connection to your wands," Harry said. "You've been taught to use your wand, but the magic I'm testing for is not done with a wand. In fact it might work very badly with one."

Draco paused and thought about it. He looked around the room and wonder just what would be learnt in this room. His friend hadn't been harmed from what he'd seen, so he placed his wand in the box.

"All of them," Harry said and crossed his arms. "You can't have any on your person, if you want to honestly test for a different form of magic."

The blonde sighed, took out two more and placed them next to his primary wand. "There," he said. "Satisfied?"

"Quite," Harry said. Both boxes closed and locked magically. He gave the same instructions for the Illuminate spell and watched the pale green light form in a half, foot radius around his schoolboy enemy. "Good! The word Nox will cancel it."

He took out the bouncy Puffskein and saw the other boy sneer at the fluffy, bouncy creature. He told him to follow through with the second part of the test. The blond touched it and barely made a dent in the little thing's energy level. He had enough to be a part of the study group though.

"One last thing," Harry said as he looked at the other boy. "Dobby," he called out and then instructed the elf to set up a couple of large floating targets in the room. "Thank you," he said. "Take the Puffskein to the MML for the others to take care of it, it's earned a rest." Dobby bowed and elf popped away without a word.

"What are those for," Draco asked as he tried to access the box with his wands. It was still locked.

"A final test," Harry said. "I was weak in that last magic too, but I'm stronger in something else. So I thought I'd test you in it." He positioned himself at a distance from the target and explained. "I want you to do a throwing motion away from your chest, under or overhand doesn't matter. As you do that I want you to say the word, _Igniculus_ , like this." He did an overhand throw and at the same time he said, "Igniculus."

A burst of flame left his hand, flew in the direction of the target and exploded with flames licking away at its outline until it had been completely destroyed by the fire.

Draco's jaw dropped. _This_ was how the Boy-Who-Lived destroyed the Dark Lord's mark from the sky during the Quidditch World Cup. His eyes widened in surprise. "You want me to..."

"Yes," Harry said.

"I don't know that I can," the other boy hesitated.

"Scared Malfoy," Harry challenged him.

Draco glared and then said, "You wish." He took up his position. Threw his arm and growled out, "Igniculus."

A fair sized burst of fire flew from his hand to a second target that had been set up in the room. The flames were brighter and burned faster. The wards on the room protected the area where the targets have been set and soon the flames were extinguished.

"Thought so," Harry said. He made a note and explained to the curious Slytherin. "You're stronger in the Destruction School of Magic." The blonde's face showed shock and recognition at the term. "You'll be sent an invitation same as the others. I'll place a schedule on the board by the door and you can sign up for times you'd like to come to this room. The door will only open if I'm in here though since the room's been linked to me for security and secrecy." He explained about the Ministry Sanction and about the protections on the room and in the contract. "You can take your wands now," he indicated to the open boxes on the table.

"Why would you teach me this," Draco asked.

"War is coming," Harry replied. "I don't care what side you choose." He glared at the blond in a way that told him to shut his mouth on the subject. "Everyone has a right to defend themselves with whatever methods they choose to use. Whether it's using joke items, plants, weapons, regular magic, potions, ancient magic, old form weapons, etc… everyone should use whatever they feel they'll need in order to protect and defend themselves. They can used a frying pan for all I care so long as they fight for what they believe in and do it right." He walked over to the door and held it open. "This room is considered neutral territory. Hogwarts is a school where everyone has a right to learn what they can in order to have a fulfilling magical life and that's just what will happen in here too."

The Slytherin prefect waited for the Boy-Who-Lived to close and lock the door. "Do we have to show up?"

"No," Harry said. "But if you don't sign the contract you won't have access to the room for the rest of the year. That's why you'll be issued an invitation for an information session. Then you can choose to sign a contract or not."

"Is it true that you can't tell a lie," Draco asked.

"Yes," Harry said. "Doesn't mean I have to answer every question though, it's not like the effects of the Veritaserum Potion." He looked at the other boy and said, "Ask your question and I'll answer if it's a reasonable question."

"Why didn't you take my hand in friendship back in first year," Draco asked. This was something he had always been curious about and figured that it would be neutral enough a question.

"Because you weren't offering friendship," Harry explained. "You talked down to Ron when you didn't have to. You pushed your way into our train compartment and tried to take some of our treats when you weren't invited to do so. In short, you reminded me of my overweight bullying cousin who was spoiled beyond belief and was someone I used to hate."

Malfoy barely winced at the comparison, but he had winced and then asked, "So now you don't hate him anymore?"

"Nope," Harry said.

"What did he do to make you change your mind about him," Draco asked. He thought that there was something that he could learn.

"He died, this past summer. Never had the chance to make a choice to change his ways. Last time I saw him, he was still a bully and getting involved with a dangerous crowd because his parents encouraged him or at least they never thought about offering him different life choices," Harry said and looked at the other boy's shock. "You're still a spoiled brat, but there's potential in you. You still have some time to make _your own_ choices." He left the blond there to think about what he'd said. "Later Malfoy!"

"Potter," the blonde acknowledged with a nod. He turned the other way and headed towards the Slytherin House common room to seek out his compatriot in order to find out if Crabbe had passed too.

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

Professor Minerva McGonagall received an owl in her private office in the evening of October 5. She read the letter and saw a copy of the contract that each student had signed with Harry Potter for his private study group. She blinked and then summoned a house-elf to bring her a glass of scotch. This was a special occasion after all.

She smiled as she read the names on the small list and thought, ' _Every House in Hogwarts has a member in his little club._ '

Harry - James - Potter

 _Dear Professor McGonagall,_

 _See the enclosed copy of the contract signed by the ten students who've agreed to participate in my 'specialized training' sessions._

 _Thank you,_

 _Harry Potter_

Contracted Students

 _Gryffindor: Neville Longbottom (Yr. 5), Harry Potter (Yr. 5), Lee Gordon (Yr. 7)_

 _Ravenclaw: Luna Lovegood (Yr. 4), Eddie Carmichael (Yr. 7),_

 _Hufflepuff: Susan Bones (Yr. 5), Tom Summerby (Yr. 7)_

 _Slytherin: Astoria Greengrass (Yr. 3), Vincent Crabbe (Yr. 5), Draco Malfoy (Yr. 5)_

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

 **TBC…**

(...i...)  www dot hp-lexicon dot org/hogwarts/houses/ravenclaw dot html (remove spaces and change the word dot)


	9. Chapter 9

**CH 9**

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

Two days before McGonagall received her notice and after the evening meal, the students of various Houses showed up to the same room where they'd been tested for unconventional magical ability. They were surprised to have received the note, but it was Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived that had asked for their presence.

The note that he had sent to the ten (...i...) of them the day before had been short, but precise.

 _You've been tested and have passed. You can choose to learn these new magics or not, but come to the testing room tomorrow. I will present the contract that you must sign in order to learn this ancient magic. If you don't show up tomorrow night by 7:15pm, you'll forfeit this year's chance to practice within a safe environment._

 _By showing up, you agree to set aside House differences and to listen to the brief presentation which will be followed by a small demonstration of the magical potential of your ancient abilities._

 _HP_

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

Harry looked up from his notebook. He pulled out his pocket watch and saw the time shift from 7:13 to 7:14pm. He walked to the door and sighed. He had hoped that Malfoy or Crabbe would have shown up by now. They seemed, well not quite keen about it, but at least they weren't about to cause trouble.

He was about to close the door to the room when he heard a suit of armour crash down the hall nearby. He looked out of the door and saw that Hermione and Ron were preventing the last two people who passed his tests from entering the room.

"Ron," he barked. "Hermione what are you two doing?"

"They were going to attack the students that went into the room behind you," Ron said. He thought up the lie quickly.

Harry sighed and then called into the room, "Neville could you come here please? You too Astoria, we need your assistance." He waited and the two he called came to him. "Could you please bring Crabbe and Malfoy into the room and then close the doors behind me while I deal with these two meddlers? It shouldn't take too long."

"Of course," Neville said as he helped Crabbe get to his feet and limp over to the room. He was of a similar size to help the boy. He whispered, "You did intend to show up right."

"Yes," Crabbe hissed as they entered the room because his ankle landed wrongly when they crossed the threshold.

Malfoy was leaning on the girl who was two years his junior in the Slytherin House, but was quite tall for her age. She was what many may have called a late bloomer. "Thanks," he said. "I was coming."

"I understand," she said. She glared at the two Gryffindor Prefects that had prevented safe passage for students of the school. "They should have known better. Bet they jumped to the wrong conclusions."

"They did," Malfoy confirmed with snort. "Like always," he muttered. He took a seat in one of the low comfortable chairs in the room as the doors had shut behind them.

Meanwhile Harry was knocking on the office door of a man that he'd been told to go to if there was trouble with his class. He hoped that this constituted such a situation.

"Mr. Potter," Professor Snape said. "Miss Granger, Mr. Weasley, what seems to be the problem?"

"These two interfered," Harry stated. "There's a suit of armour that was knocked down in the process. Two students have received minor injuries and we'll take them to the infirmary once I finish the information session I had planned." He motioned to the closed door not far from the Professor's office.

"I see," Professor Snape said although he had a feeling that he didn't. "It seems that these two are just fine."

"They weren't the ones injured," Harry said. "Crabbe and Malfoy will be taken to the infirmary in about half an hour from now. I just thought you should know." He left quickly and entered the supposedly locked door.

Professor Snape looked at the two Gryffindors and then said, "So much for the loyalty of the lions, ten points each from Gryffindor for the altercation and damage done to the suit of armour. You've both earned detention tomorrow night with Filch to help him put the armour back together without magic." They stared back at him and then left the area very quickly, after he'd asked them, "Do you require assistance to return to your dorms?"

Behind the locked doors of the private study room, Harry demonstrated something of the abilities he had by healing the injuries of the two Slytherins that had been delayed from entering the room. "I know I promised a demonstration later," he said as he knelt by them. "However I think you should all gather around and see. Malfoy, Crabbe, tell me where you were hurt?"

"My legs and left ankle," Crabbe said. "It was tripping spell."

"Malfoy," Harry asked.

"The suit of armour only fell on me," Draco told them with a grimace as he rolled his shoulder with a cracking sound, but without any true pain.

"All right, everyone please watch," Harry said. He placed his hand on both their legs and hissed, (...Curo alii...) (...ii...) Everyone in the room gasped when he hissed. The two Slytherins were surprised to feel their injuries dissipate. "You'll still have to see Mw. Pomfrey just in case something has been missed, but I believe that you'll find that most of the hurt and the injuries gone."

"Why use Parseltongue," Malfoy asked as he stood up and checked his range of shoulder motion which moved without any twinges or pain.

"Easier for me," Harry said as he stood up too. He then walked over to a low shelving unit. "Now upon entering this room, you need to place your wands in the boxes over these cubbies. This is to ensure that what's learned in this room does not involve your wands as the old forms of magic never required any foci tools like wands, staves, rods etc..." He demonstrated the boxes including how to tag them to the individual. "You place all your wands in the box, close it and then send a small portion of your magic at it. It tags the box and cubby under it to you. It'll be yours until the end of the year." They noticed that Harry's name appeared on the box after he'd pushed a bit of his magic at it.

Most of the others followed his examples. "All your wands Malfoy," Harry said as he removed his House robes and the coloured tie to tuck them away in the cubby. "The cubbies are for your House colours that way we do not condemn someone for the House they've been sorted into. It's best if we show up in casual, training gear, but since the room will sometimes be open during class times, the majority of your colours should go away. After you've done that, find a chair and we'll get to the boring part of this session."

Dobby popped into the room and set up small tables with tea and snacks for the students. He then went behind the far side screen and brought out four large tapestry hangings on display racks. They were covered with curtains for the time being.

"Thank you Dobby," Harry said. "You can stay and watch if you like or else do whatever you want to do. I'll call you when we need to set up the targets." The students watched the house-elf bow and conjure up a footstool to sit down and listen to the lecture while swinging his legs happily.

"First let me tell you that this room is warded against interruption, intrusion and it has elaborate secrecy spells that will protect you completely from divulging what we learn or what any of your ancient abilities are," he told them. "No one can come in here unless they've been invited by me. It's just the way this room has been set up." He quelled the outrage that the Slytherins or any other might be feeling. "If you want to show someone what it is you do in here, then they must obey the rules of this room which means no wands and I must be the one to invite them. Best to wait until the New Year when you have a few more spells available or more practice in casting those you do know."

He took a sip of water to clear his throat, "Now in the ancient past there used to be seven Schools of Magic which were: Alteration, Conjuration, Destruction, Illusion, Mysticism, and Restoration," Harry explained. "Each school had six listed levels or ranks of magical access which automatically set the limit for accessing certain spells in their related school. The levels or ranks are: Novice, Apprentice, Journeyman, Expert, Adept and Master. There is a seventh theoretical rank known as Legendary Master, but there is no evidence of it in this day and age plus I've never found any reference to it. Yes?" He pointed to one of the Hufflepuffs in the room.

"What's the seventh School of Magic," Susan Bones asked.

"Necromancy," Harry said. "It's a field of magic all on its own even in today's society. Most of the magic conducted under that branch is considered the blackest of all arts which should never be confused with what the Ministry of Magic has classified as Dark Arts. It is not quite in the same family as Conjuration, but you'll understand once you begin conjuring creatures and see how they may be similar and yet is very different from playing with the dead or with soul magic."

He shuddered at the thought of what the Dark Idiot had done to himself because he'd used spells from the School of Necromancy without knowing or caring about all of the nasty consequences. "Needless to say we will _not_ be studying that particular school of magic; one because there are no books available on that subject and two because it's a Ministry banned subject for our Magical Nation and there are plenty of chargeable offences under our current magical laws should there be even just a whisper of someone practising anything close to it."

He took another sip of water and then continued with his brief explanation of the schools. "I'm only giving you an overview of all the schools and the types of magic that it controls," he told them. "I'm not going to give you lessons or lectures of any kind because it's up to each of you just how far you want to study your ancient magical skills. I will not tell you to research any spells from Charms or Transfiguration with the object being to discover which school of magic they originated from. If you want to do that, do it on your own time." He paused and then continued, "I will demonstrate a novice level spell for each of the six schools tonight and you can review the contract that must be signed. If you wish to come to this room during your free times to practice or learn something new, feel free to do so since this room is specifically warded to shield all of you while you practice any spells."

Harry nodded to his house-elf and asked, "Dobby please set up appropriate targets at the opposite end of the room."

"Yes, Master Harry Potter Sir," the elf squeaked. He ran to the other end of the room as the students looked at the contract.

"Harry," Susan said. "Where did you get this?"

"From the Ministry of Magic," Harry replied with a grin. "It was specifically given to me from the Head of the D.M.L.E. why do you ask?"

"My aunt signed it," Susan replied with a smile.

"Why are there only ten of us," Malfoy asked.

"Only ten could demonstrate that they were able to cast testing spells and not many people came to the room to be tested," Harry said. "Those I asked you to perform were the basic spells that could be cast without purchasing a spell."

"Purchase," Lee Gordon asked. "What do you mean purchase?"

"The spells are an old form of ancient magic which can only be learnt from purchasing the spells in the form of a spell book and studying them in depth," Harry explained. "You can buy those books from the magical banks around the world and _only_ from those banks. That's not to say that you won't find some in your personal family libraries, but nearly all ancient spells come from those particular spell books. You should be aware that if your level or magical capacity is novice for a specific school of magic then you'll only be able to successfully cast _novice_ level spells. Spells of a higher level than novice will just fizzle and not work. Don't worry there are no consequences that I'm aware of when casting a spell from a higher level. I've done it myself and nothing's happened."

"But what if we want to purchase a higher level spell even if we can't cast it," Tom Sommerby asked.

"If you can afford it, go ahead and buy it," Harry said. "You'll just have to wait until you reach that particular level, rank or internal magical capacity or understanding for the particular School of Magic related to your purchased spell. You can still study it too, you'll just not cast it successfully."

"How do you gain higher levels or ranks," Luna asked.

"This is where patience and practice comes in," Harry sighed. "You have to cast a spell in one particular school over and over again in order to obtain an innate understanding for that particular. You have to monitor your magic levels while you do that because you'll need to rest in between times or you'll become magically exhausted. It's also best to rest naturally. Taking energy potions when practicing spell casting is not advised. It takes a lot of time to master a spell too."

"All right then Potter," Malfoy said in a bored tone. "Demonstrate away."

Harry nodded, handed out a list of the basic spells with an explanation of what the different school influence, like Restoration for physical health, Mysticism which is more into the mental arts, etc... He then told them, "Until you purchase different spells you may not be able to do much, but you'll notice the spell light of them having been cast. You can come in and practice those that you do know or have been tested in."

"The first is an Alteration spell called _Protect_ ," Harry told them. "It's not that difficult to buy and I've already sent a special request to the goblin in charge of the Gringotts' Hogsmeade Branch to carry several copies of the ones I'm going to demonstrate today. He did warn me that it will be first come first served and he will only sell two spell books at a time to give everyone a chance to purchase something."

He looked at all of them and received nods that the limit was acceptable. "The protect spell has several factors to remember, one it's very basic, it has a time limit of minor duration and a strength percentage which helps to know how well it'll protect you. The limit is based on your magical access. Right now I'm going to use a Latin word of activation which is also one that you all know."

Harry moved to stand in one of the circles of rune mosaics at the testing end of the old duelling hall. "These circles are magical barriers which will contain the magic you cast. Always cast your spells within these circles because once you step out of it the spell will be cancelled." He explained and then said, "Protego!"

A shield of light formed a barrier around him and disappeared from sight, but was still active for a few moments, until they saw it shatter in colourful sparkles as the time limit expired.

"Some activation words for regular charms and spells will work with the ancient magics," Harry told them. "However the effects with and without a wand will vary greatly."

"Like Nox," Neville asked.

"Exactly," Harry confirmed. "The next is from the Conjuration school." He hissed this one (...Kutelli...) with an unsheathing motion. A small dark red dagger came into being in his hand with a yellowish glow or spell light. "The word I used is Kutelli and this is one of the spells you'll have to purchase on your own. It is called ' _Bound Dagger_ '. The Conjuration is again limited in duration by magical strength. The way the dagger looks is based on the dagger image formed in your mind. This is different from Transfiguration or the normal conjurations that we are learning in class with Professor McGonagall." The dagger disappeared after two minutes.

"If repeating the conjuration helps," Lee asked. "How can you do it with something bound like that?"

"You can sheath a weapon and it will dissipate more quickly," Harry told them. "The Novice Conjuration spells are limited and will be harder to obtain, so you do have to keep an eye out for them. Like I said I did put in a request with the goblin posted at the Hogsmeade branch, but some might be more difficult for him to obtain than others. This dagger spell is harder to find, but you'll be able to obtain bound armour like boots or gloves."

"That's why you didn't invite the first or second years," Astoria stated. "They don't have access to Hogsmeade."

"That's right and the goblin will not sell the spell books unless you're present to purchase them," Harry confirmed with a nod of his head. "They do have a catalogue of available spells for purchase, but there is a wait period for the delivery of the books. Of all the schools of magic only Destruction, Illusion and Restoration contain the most novice level spells available for purchase. I have a list of the common spells per rank and its related school so that you'll know which ones are linked to what level. You'll also notice that when you go to buy a particular spell that you won't know what rank it is because there is no information about it. There will only be a notation on the inside book cover that will state, ' _You do not have enough magic_ '. That means that the spell is for a rank higher than one you can access. Also the price of the spell book you're interested in can be an indicator of the spell level. The difference between Novice and Apprentice spells can be the difference between Knuts and Sickles versus Sickles and Galleons. Very high level spells will range in the thousands of Galleons due to their rarity or their level of difficulty to cast without burning yourself out."

The students blanched at the cost of such spells. "Goblins are always willing to negotiate," Harry stated. "They may be looking for something that you may have the ability to get which they cannot or they may bring up something else like an idea for trade, but I wouldn't worry about it too much. Everything will be up to your own choices in the end."

"Now since I've already demonstrated an Illusion spell which all of you have cast with various degrees of success. I suspect that the reason for the successful casting was due to the fact that you all knew Lumos," Harry told them with a grin and received several in return. "It was the illuminate one."

"Some, but not all were able to cast the drain energy spell on the Puffskein, but that doesn't mean you can't cast another spell. This one is available to all of you and the name is _Heal Minor Wounds_. You can only heal yourself with this spell. Even if you don't need healing, you can re-cast this one repeatedly to build up your endurance in magic for the School of Restoration. My words are Sanis vulnamina." (...iii...) He was bathed in a light blue healing light that was familiar to all who had ever been confined to the infirmary. General healing spells often appeared in that kind of blue colour or light. "All of you will have to discover your own spell words if sanis vulnamina doesn't work for you."

The students cast the spell, but two had to play around with their preferred languages or the words themselves in order to successfully cast the ancient healing spell. They'd all noticed a varying degree of success once everyone had their proper spell words.

"Why didn't you ask us to cast that spell," Eddie asked. "It would have probably worked better than that Devor Inergia one."

Harry blushed, rubbed the back of his head and confessed. "I didn't think about that, but also you had to hunt around for words to make that spell work, didn't you?"

Eddie sheepishly nodded.

The other students laughed at Harry for forgetting that option, but he just joined them because it was funny. Vincent looked at the targets, but said, "I assume the targets are for the Destruction School, but what about the Mysticism School."

"Right," Harry said. "Mysticism is more of a mental art and there are only two novice level spells that I know of which are basically _Minor Dispel_ and _Minor Life Detection_. The dispel one is actually quite good at countering many of the smaller jinxes and hexes that we normally cast with a wand, but it's difficult to practice unless you do it as a team of two with one person cursing another. The minor life detection is one that can be recast over and over again. The words I use are, ' _Vita mina deprensus_ ' in parseltongue, I know badly translated, but that's how the words came for me." They did notice that he had a purple spell light form in his hand before it settled around his head. "Both spells are purchasable from the banks."

"What does it do," Luna asked.

"It detects people and creatures from a few feet away," Harry said. "I see them as being there with magically hazy silhouette around them." He looked to the door and then walked towards it. "I can tell that there are two people standing outside of the door, but I can't tell you their gender or who they are. I can't see further than ten feet away either and I don't know if it works with ghosts."

"Interesting," Luna observed.

"The final school, the School of Destruction, is also one of the ones that you should be able to cast a simple spell in, but if not then look to the Banks for a spell book," Harry said. "Draco since you've already done it why don't you demonstrate this one?"

"Right then," the blond said and explained it to the others. He stood in one of the rings, faced one of the targets set up and said, "Igniculus," he said with a tossing motion of his hand. The other students watched the small flame fly from his hand, burst when it hit the target and devour it until the flames disappeared after a very short time.

"Right," Harry said. "Now the rest of you try it until all the targets are gone. If that word doesn't work for you, try finding a word or a phrase that means either; ' _small flare_ ', ' _flames_ ', ' _small flames_ ' or just ' _flare_ '. When you've done that, you'll have to choose to sign the contract or not. If you don't sign, you can't come back in this room for the rest of the year. If you do sign, but choose not to show up, then that's perfectly all right too. You can take one of these scrolls and it'll mirror the times I'm in the room. So if I'm in here that means the door will be open to you and the scroll will blink or vibrate in five short consecutive bursts. If it makes two longs burst of light or long vibrations that means that I've locked up the room. I figured this would be easier to track than a signup sheet."

The ten students all chose to sign the contract form. "What are behind those curtains," Astoria asked. "I mean I know they're tapestries, but who do they represent?"

Harry slapped his forehead and said, "I must be losing my mind. If they were alive, they would so give me detention and definitely dock points." He nodded to Dobby who pulled the cords to open the curtains. "Friends may I present the Founders of Hogwarts," he told them. "Helga Hufflepuff and Rowena Ravenclaw," the two ladies curtsied. "Salazar Slytherin and Godric Gryffindor," the two men bowed. "They taught the old ways when they first formed the school and have agreed to help all of us out while we're in this room."

"Where the bloody hell did those come from," Draco asked and swore at the same time.

"Language young man," Rowena said in a stern tone of voice. "We were around. I can also see by the time on the wall clock that you left our introduction until too late Harry." She had her hands on her hips.

"Sorry," Harry said shame faced. "But tomorrow's Saturday," he told the other students. "I'll be in here for most of it so you can come back to talk to them if you want."

"That'll be your saving grace son," Salazar said and the Boy-Who-Lived nodded his head. "All right children tomorrow we'll answer whatever questions we can."

"Thank you," Lee said. He had homework to do and then he asked Harry. "We can't tell anyone about this?" 

"Sorry," Harry said. "It's for your protection as much as everyone else that comes here."

"Good plan," Tom said. "I have a lot of homework to do too. See you around Potter." He brushed his hand over the box that held his wand. He shrugged into his robes and loosely put on his tie. He picked up his school bag and left the room.

The other students followed his example. They'd all picked up a small blank scroll. It used the same magic as the twin diaries, but this was another product that they were testing. This type of magic was for office employers or businesses that wanted to track their employees' work schedules. All anyone had to do was carry it and be in proximity of the recording device. It was more basic than the twins ' _Best Friends_ ' journals and generally keyed to managers or business owners tracking employee movement using magical ID tags.

Malfoy and Crabbe stayed behind when Harry called after them. "Guys," he said. "Remember you have to go to the infirmary."

Draco looked to his friend who nodded. "We forgot about that," Malfoy stated. "Will you escort us?"

Harry gathered his belongings and asked, "Did you want me to?"

"In case your friends are patrolling," Crabbe said with a nod. "It might lend credence that you had nothing to do with the altercation."

Harry looked at the goon and muttered, "Slytherin masks. I knew I should have let the silly hat put me in that House." The two boys were surprised to hear that, but just followed him after the door to the room had been shut and locked.

Once they were in the infirmary Mw Pomfrey had tutted when she heard the basics of the scuffle and scanned the two Slytherins for their injuries. "Severus told me to expect you two," she said. "I can only tell where you've been hurt because of where healing magic has pooled, but whatever injuries you two boys had they are now completely healed without any consequence. A bit of rest and you should be fine. Don't overstrain those areas, now off with you."

Harry just grinned at the other two boys, waved in their general direction and headed up to Gryffindor Tower. The Slytherins filed the information about those spells away in their minds and headed off to meet their Head of House in order to explain that they were fine, but that they could not discuss the goings on in the training room.

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

 **TBC…**

(...i...) Ten students - names from www dot hp-lexicon dot org (remove the spaces and change the word dot)

Gryffindors: Neville Longbottom(5), Harry Potter(5), Lee Gordon (7)

Ravenclaws: Luna Lovegood(4), Eddie Carmichael (7),

Hufflepuffs: Susan Bones (5), Tom Summerby(7)

Slytherins: Astoria Greengrass(3), Vincent Crabbe(5), Draco Malfoy(5)

(...ii...) Curo alii = "Heal others", from web www dot ablemedia dot com /ctcweb/showcase/ wordsonline dot html (change the word dot and remove the spaces)

(...iii...) Sanis vulnamina (mix of the three Latin words) = Sanus (Heal) Vulnus (Wound) Miniscula (Minor)


	10. Chapter 10

**CH 10**

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

Sirius Black had been seated at the Professor's table since around the twentieth of October and he was quickly becoming one of the more popular Defense Professors that the school has ever had during Harry's time at Hogwarts. He was only preceded by Remus Lupin in some of the students' opinions, but they couldn't argue that the ex-con had a style all his own and that they were learning exactly what they needed to learn in that particular class.

Madam Umbridge had returned to the school along with an Honorary Ministry title of ' _Hogwarts Inquisitor_ '. She was to provide the Ministry with an overview of the classes being taught at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and ensure that they were up all to the Ministry Standard. However the reach of her influence had faded greatly due to the press reports and the large fines she had been forced to pay for misusing a goblin made artefact especially against the children of the school. The general public had not been impressed with her discipline methods, writing lines was perfectly fine, but not with a _blood quill_.

There had been no mention anywhere in the papers nor during the inquisition that she'd endured of her having used the Imperious Curse illegally.

In a stroke of genius though, Professor Black had come to the school prepared to teach the students about different types of magical artefacts and when to properly use them as well as Defense Against the Dark Arts. He'd brought about forty copies of a small booklet called, ' _Magical Artefacts and the Ministry; Protocols of Proper Usage; the Laws for and Charges against such Uses_.'

Dolores Umbridge's teaching qualifications had come into question as well. After a lengthy review by the Board of Governors it had been found that she wasn't allowed to teach because of her basic lack of sufficient N.E.W.T.s in any prominent field of magic. She barely had any post Hogwarts education and most of which were basic and secretarial in nature. This made the newspapers postulate on her qualifications for the Ministry position she currently held, but that didn't result in anything much. Other than the public not quite trusting the Minister to select well informed or educated members for the various Ministry Departments under his purview.

So she resorted to skulking around the school trying to dock points and give detentions, but the Heads of House had warned their students of the woman's limitations despite her lofty title. The woman was not permitted to take any type of disciplinary actions since she clearly wasn't qualified to teach _any_ class at the school. She was only at the school to review the performance of the Professors and information in the classes being taught. The woman also was not permitted to interfere with the students' studies or with the way the teachers chose to conduct their classes.

Umbridge still tried to make trouble though especially for the Boy-Who-Lived. She had successfully been able to ban Harry, Fred and George from playing Quidditch for the remainder of the year for brawling within the school. However it didn't quite have the same effect that she thought it would because the younger Gryffindor had just smiled at her, grabbed her hand tightly and shook it very vigorously, nearly crushing her fingers. He was hard-pressed not to, but knew to control his strength at that point in time.

Harry gave her an obviously heartfelt and exaggerated, "Thank you!"

But when she intended to confiscate his broom, he denied her the opportunity as he had quickly banished it to Sirius' rooms with a note. She had attempted to obtain it, but the boy told her. "Sorry madam, banning us from playing is one thing, but to take away my personal broom is hardly fair. I sent it to a secure location where I know it will remain safely locked away."

The Gryffindor Quidditch team had been upset, but then again they were doing well in finding recruits to play. "Listen," Harry had given them a bit of advice. "You'll be going through this process all over again when the older members of the team and Alicia leave the school. Think ahead and get some butts into something of a reserve roster. I'll be cheering for you from the benches, but this is my O.W.L.s year and I intend to do well on most of those."

The team had no choice then and agreed about the need to set up reserve team. So they chose to make a secondary team which was made up of mainly second and third year students. They managed to form a main playing team of older students, but everyone needed the practice. In the end it had been the decision best made for Gryffindor.

The only troublesome spot his life was the fact that ever since the ban Hermione had been badgering Harry to head up a secondary club for the purpose of studying practical magic for Defense Against the Dark Arts. Her argument was that, "Sirius can't do it all on his own. It's only the first years that are starting from scratch, but with all the other years being behind, he's got to put a lot of effort into making sure that every student revises all their previous years in order to catch them up to a proper level."

"Give it a rest Hermione," Harry replied with a huff. He'd been trying to eat his supper, but she just continued to talk at him. "What do you expect me to do? I'm not a Professor or anything."

"You have the best scores in Defense and I know that you know more defensive spells because of how you prepared for last year's Triwizard tasks," Hermione pushed. She sensed that he was about to give in. "Remus cannot help either because of how he left when we were in third year. I think Dumbledore has him doing some stuff for the...you-know-what."

"I told you to let me think about it," Harry turned to her with a glare. "Leave me alone to do that."

"I asked you about this last week," Hermione huffed and crossed her arms.

"It'll take me longer than that to decide. I am busier now," Harry told her. "It's my choice on how I spend my free time. Besides I'd have to talk to Sirius about it and pushing me is not going to get me to decide in your favour. So stop asking." He jumped up from his seat, grabbed his school bag and left the Great Hall. He wandered the corridors for a time and then he made his way to his father's room.

"Harry," Sirius said and stepped aside to allow his son to enter his private rooms. He hugged the boy, after he'd closed the door and asked, "How is it going?"

Harry sighed and said, "Hermione is hounding me to head up some kind of secondary defense class or a supplemental defense club to practice defense magic." He huffed, "She's convinced that you'll have difficulty catching so many of us up to the level we are supposed to be at, but I believe she's just more worried about the fact that this is her O.W.L.s year and she's afraid of failing. I think it's the fact that she's a Prefect with more responsibilities that she believes that she'll have less time to study which makes her want to group some of the practical work after classes to make up for her lack of time to practice in class or something like that."

Sirius rubbed the back of his head and admitted, "I could use the help you know." He sat down and ordered tea from Winky who had followed him from Grimmauld Place. "Thank you, Winky," he said.

"You's Welcome," she twittered. "Winky go help MML elves, they's in Forbidden Forest gathering ingredients to store away for Joke Lab."

"Yes," Harry said with his hand petting her clean hair. "Thank you for helping them and for your help to my unruly father here." The little elf preened at the flow of positive emotions she felt coming from her young master. She giggled and popped away.

Kreacher had remained at Grimmauld Place to serve the Order of the Phoenix. He did so, but only with minimal amount of cooperation because Harry had told the old elf that he didn't have to change his attitude when asked to do something for someone that was not Remus, Sirius or Harry. He was still permitted to grumble about ' _blood traitors_ ' all he wanted as long as it was not within the hearing of his three magical masters.

The Order members were still confined to the back entrance, the back hall and the large dining room. They had minimal access to the kitchens by way of Mrs. Weasley only, but the Order had to pay for the foods they used.

Harry had refused to permit them access to the rest of the house as even the small party at the end of summer had been confined to the large dining room. Mrs. Weasley thought he was being too strict with the rest of the adults by confining them to the back of the house.

"I'm not a member of the Order," he'd told her at the time. "I don't trust any of them in _my_ house. They have access to what they need and that should be enough for them to conduct their business secretly and securely."

The woman huffed, but left him alone after that. She muttered something about talking to Dumbledore or having the old man talk to him, but nothing came of it yet.

Harry was just sitting next to his father and enjoyed the solitude and peace. He sighed, leaned against the man's arm and just sat there. His eyes were almost closed when Sirius asked, "Do you want to help me out?"

"How," Harry asked in a drowsy tone.

"Help with your year mates," Sirius wrapped an arm around his son's shoulders. "Maybe the upper years too, only the ones that actually seek a refresher in practical defense."

"Still thinking about it," Harry yawned. "Hermione really wants to do that, but she wants to use my name to get bodies to show up for the study group."

"Might be a good idea," Sirius told him. "You can probably discuss the DA articles from the newspapers. More and more papers are putting out articles with references to how to defend your own home, among other things, like when an Auror cannot come to help in time and how to record who did what, when and where."

"I suppose," Harry sighed.

"So what's this I hear about you already running an independent study group," Sirius asked.

Harry grinned and said, "That has to do with the form that Madam Bones had given me the day you were exonerated."

"Ah yes," Sirius said and his eyes sparked, "Ministry Sanctioned or something of that nature?"

"Yes," Harry looked up to his father, his green eyes lighting with mischief too. "It certainly helps that I had the room specially warded against intrusion. Umbridge can't enter the room and I always close it up long before curfew so that there is no excuse for anyone patrolling the halls to ever dock points from those of us coming from that room. Not that she can, but she does try to delay us." He sighed again and the explained. "Ron and Hermione have tried to penalize the Slytherins for it several times because they can't participate in what I'm doing."

"So... you're making sure that the Slytherins learn whatever it is you're teaching in there too," Sirius commented.

"I tested all those that wanted to try something new," Harry said. "I couldn't discriminate against the school's Houses. I'm not sure how my time would work with the secondary defense club though. I don't want them in that room because it'd feel like those that are there for purely defense tutorial are invading our private designated space."

Sirius had thought about it and with the help of Remus he understood that he could request that another defense room be opened for students to do elective studies. It would have to be before that Umbridge woman passed another decree of some kind at the school. As the Ministry's Inquisitor she'd been able have several decrees passed so far. It shouldn't have worked, but Dumbledore was seemingly indulging the Ministry in order to prevent further Ministry interference at the school.

The duelling room was a good idea and then there was also what Winky called the ' _Come and Go_ ' room which might work to the students' advantage.

"Work on the name kid," the man told him. "Will I get to see what it is that you do in your specialized study group?"

"I told them that anyone that wants to see what is learned requires an invitation to enter the room by me," Harry told him. "I also told the students that come the New Year, I'd set up a day or two for demonstration purposes, but that they'd have to let me know the names of the people they'd want invited." He stood up and said, "I have to get back to the dorms."

"Drop by anytime you need to," Sirius told him.

"Has Dumbledore told you anymore about what his plans are," Harry asked.

"No," Sirius said. "He did mention that he felt you should have Occlumency lessons."

"But I already know Occlumency," Harry said.

"Yes," Sirius told him. "But he doesn't know that."

"Who does he think can teach me," Harry asked.

Sirius coughed and said, "I told him that I could do it, but then he said that I was perhaps too close to you and wouldn't take care to truly cast the spell with enough strength."

Harry huffed and then said, "He wants Professor Snape to do it right?"

The Head of the House Black nodded. "I hated the git in school, but we're no longer children. It'll be up to you to decide how much you want to tell him or whether to play up to a lack of knowledge."

"I'll have to think about that," Harry said. "If I play up to a lack of knowledge in that skill I'd have to loosen the hold I have on my current shields which are what's stopping the Dark Idiot from invading my dreams or influencing me with his insane thoughts and emotions."

"I understand that," Sirius said. "You'll let me know what you choose to do. Right?"

"Of course," Harry said. "First we'll wait and see. I wonder when the old coot is planning to let me know about these ' _extra_ ' lessons and how he'll go about it."

"You should go now," Sirius told him. "Think about it and call on Dobby. He'll show you where the ' _Come and Go_ ' room is. If I sanction you to teach or demonstrate some things you might like to have that room show you just what it can do to help you out."

Harry nodded. He left after giving his father a final hug.

The man sighed and looked to the ceiling. "Lily and James please, just help me keep an eye on him, yeah? I need all the help I can get."

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

 **On a Monday Afternoon**

Harry walked through the Room of Requirement. This time he'd thought of carnival games. They were the kind that tested dexterity, aiming and other types of abilities. He laughed at the stuffed animals that were hanging up at some of the booths. It was clear that he had no idea what some prizes were at real muggle booths, but everything that appeared looked like something from his cousin's old broken toy room. Only these toys and prizes weren't broken and they looked like something that came from his own imagination too.

"Dobby this is great," Harry said.

"Dobby knows," the house-elf replied. "What does this do?" He pointed at one of the clowns with the open mouth.

"It's a water game," Harry said. He took hold of the pressure gun and showed the little guy how it worked. "You aim like this," the house-elf copied him. "Then you fire with the trigger into the clown's mouth. The balloon on top gets bigger until it pops."

"What is purpose of this game," Dobby asked as they both fired the water into the clown's mouth.

"First balloon to pop means that, that person wins a prize," Harry said. "It's always something from the same booth. It's usually something sized-based, depending on the number of people playing the game or how much you paid to play."

The balloon popped with a loud noise from Dobby's clown face first. Harry's was second because he was looking at his house-elf's facial expression when he explained the game.

"You win," Harry said. "Pick a prize from the booth."

"Which one," Dobby looked pleased to have a choice, but was still confused about which one to choose.

Harry hopped behind the booth and pointed to a row of mid-to-small stuffed animals. There were some goofy looking, daisy faced flowers there as well as pin-wheels and some stuffed car shapes.

Dobby picked out a blue car that had wings and looked an awful lot like Mr. Weasley's old Ford Anglia. Its engine could still be heard in the Forbidden Forest from time to time. The rev of the old engine was unmistakable to many of the muggle born students who always wondered who'd been able to drive up this far into the magical environment.

They stepped out of the room and Harry did a final walk by with the thought in his mind, ' _I need a place to practice Defense Magic,_ ' he walked by once, ' _I need a place to practice Defense Magic_ ,' twice and finally, ' _I need a place to practice Defense Magic._ ' The door appeared in the wall again.

He walked into it and immediately noticed that there were comfortable chairs at one end of the room, with a tall bookshelf that contained many books on defensive magic. He scanned a couple and noted their names including authors before replacing them in the shelves.

One wall was mirrored and he thought that that might be a good idea to practice wand movements. There were sets of various targets set up around the room and they'd been placed within rune crafted practice circles. He looked at the runes more closely and noted that if he had several students in there at the same time the runes would activate shields to protect everyone practicing from being hit by stray spells.

Harry nodded and then came to a decision. "I'll do it," he muttered. "But it will be done my way."

He left the room and went to find his father. The man had ideas of what spells the students needed to be strong in. They also had the benefits of the pre-Owls tests that had been handed out and done by those that wanted to know what they were missing in order to pass their Ministry Exams.

Sirius had organized most of them into different categories and had placed aside the ones that he felt his son could assist in upgrading their skills. He chose to keep most of the difficult ones, but hoped that Harry would help out with those too.

"Come in," he said when someone had knocked at his door.

"Hey Dad," Harry said. "I've come to a decision."

"Oh," Sirius said containing his curiosity.

"Yes," Harry nodded. "I'll help on two conditions."

"And those would be..."

"I only do it three days a week," Harry said and received a nod. "The Slytherin and Gryffindor students learn on their own days, separate from everyone else."

"What do you mean by that," Sirius asked.

"The Slytherins will be studying Monday nights, after supper," Harry said. "For two hours only so that there is enough time for everyone to get to their dorms in time for curfew and the Gryffindors will be scheduled for the same time on Fridays. The other two Houses will be combined in a three hour session on Wednesdays because I have an extra hour before supper that I can be with them."

"Why are you choosing to do it that way," Sirius asked.

"I'm not going to tolerate fighting between the Houses," Harry said. "It's best to keep the Gryffindors and Slytherins separate and the other two Houses seem to be more tolerant of others. Although I won't prevent them from changing days, but they won't be able to fight since there will be a ' _No Inter House Fighting_ ' condition or ' _Zero Tolerance - No Exceptions_ ' for the use of my time. As soon as they begin to fight or question my methods or whatever they do to disrupt the others, they'll come back to you and I'm sorry, but you'll be on your own with them after that."

Sirius nodded. "All right that sounds fair and I understand." He walked over to the piles of pre-Owl tests and handed them over to his son. "These are the ones that need the most help. You set up the schedule and monitor the students that attend. If they don't show up, then they forfeit the chance for the in depth review that you'll be responsible for. I'll only test them after you tell me that they are ready for it."

"Uh," Harry huffed under the weight of the forms. "Thanks, I think." He placed them all in his bag and then said, "I'll call a meeting of my other group to let them know what's going on."

"No, no, no," Sirius said with a wave of his hand. "I'm that one that should be thanking you. I would have gone crazy if I had to do all of it on my own."

"We'll see how thankful you are after we start this," Harry said. "I'll set up the notice for the common room boards, but I want you to be the one to spell them and authorize them that way the Professors know that the study is being overseen by you and that it is _not_ a _club_ according to that stupid decree banning clubs still hanging on the school's wall."

"You got it," Sirius replied as he held the door open.

Harry didn't linger in the corridors since it was obvious that some of the Prefects were being extra vigilant for those that were breaking the school rules.

Harry - James - Potter - Harry - James - Potter

 **TBC…**


End file.
